#the scenes with his brother were actually some of the strongest of the movie to me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

xoteajays · 7 months

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I'm tipsy right now. Actually, I might be drunk. My small body just can not handle too much alcohol that often. So if I don't make sense, then you know why. Just to let you know ahead of time. Because I'm tipsy.

Honestly.. I'm not sure if I ever liked a character who never fought, I'm thinking every character I've enjoyed have been fighters and murders that I know of. Can't remember if there wasn't any fighters I didn't like before. At least none that I can think of? No characters that I think of.

Himbos. So I can't say that I don't enjoy the occasional idiot character from time to time. But, honestly, I prefer intelligent character though.

This is just my opinion.

Oh! When I said Tommy, I meant Thomas Shelby from Peaky Blinders in case you might not have ever watched the show. Wait.. Did you see the show? Because I don't know if you did. It's a British mafia series.

So my duality of characters might be slightly different than yours.

Actually.. I hate war movies. I never had any interest in watching a lot of war movies. But for me, I've watched a fair share of war movies just because of favorite actors. Like Cillian Murphy and Miyavi. So I will be watching Descendants Of The Sun for Joong-ki. And, sometimes, I'm one to watch scifi if the plot is interesting to me so I will watch Space Sweepers too. But some of the shows I was referring to for Joong-ki's roles, was The Innocent Man and Reborn Rich were only two shows. I might have to search the list again. So those were some of the shows and movies I wanted to see from him. Preferably roles where he is the star of the show, not a cameo scene. Because actors need more love.

And I'll have to search for any more roles of Do-hwan and Sang-yi the moment I get too. Since I actually do enjoy them as actors too. But I'd already said that before. Don't get me wrong! A lot of the actors I love are attractive, but I don't only like them only for their appearances. So I thought that I would clarify that. Too many of my actors are talented people. And they have beauty, brains and brawny. Quadruple quality.

I don't know if that would be a regional situation. So I will have to look into it. So I will look into But Once Upon A Crime, Informa, and lots of shows and movies I can find for certain celebrities to try watching.

Yes! That's another reason why I hate free app channels, there are too many commercials that come on screen at the most random times.

Whether or not Nikaido's in prison, he should always watch himself all the time. He could still get killed in prison too. If Japanese prisons are anything like American prisons, or any other prison around the world.

I hope he dies though. Because I never cared for his character either.

You just now realized that? Because I've done the same thing.. Kinda, sorta. Orange and Cobra might be in a romantic relationship at some point - still undecided, but I'm so not sure about Blue and Murayama though. I know, I know. Not every relationship has to be romantic. So I'm still thinking about those details over about the H&L relationships.

Why similar names? You don't have to say if you don't want to though.

Like.. Cobra. I know he is a pacifist who only fights when he needs to, especially to protect his family and friends. That's obvious. He is quiet whenever you see him. An introvert. Besides the men in Mugen, you'd know that Yamato and Noboru are basically his brothers. He is always interested in learning martial arts (especially wrestling), canonically is the strongest Sannoh character which is why he's the leader. And he's also one of the more intelligent Sannoh characters besides Noboru. It is obvious he was more happier before the incident that happened to Noboru and Miho, then he became more reserved than he was before which says a lot about his character. He might be an only child since I don't remembering seeing or hearing about his family that might. But I don't know. Oh! Snakes are his animal motif. Part of me even wishes that the animal for Sannoh was snakes instead of tigers, just because of Cobra's animal theme. That's all I can think about at the moment.

That picture of Ayaka looks like a photoshoot to me? I may be wrong..

Stop it. No more characters. I still have written any stories with any of the characters I have no. So no more. Stop it. Now.

Oh.. Like magenta and fuchsia? Or more like wine colors? Because I'd see that. Because reddish purples are more feminine than blue purple colors in my opinion. So I actually can imagine those colors for them.

Orange is a friendly person.. Whether or not your friends with her, she is always friendly towards just about everyone. Is the whole 'sunshine' type personality where everyone revolves around her but not in some arrogantly narcissistic way, but rather as a warmth friendly kinda way is how I envision her personality. If that makes sense. Actually! I don't know if you ever watched Hunter X Hunter? So imagine Gon Freecss. That is one of the character's personalities that seem close enough to describe her personality. She is definitely a very positive type person.

The relationship between Orange and Junko is one sided in any ways, like Orange's one sided friendly terms. Junko's one sided rivalry that a lot of people don't care about. Junko's one sided frienemy situation.

Exactly! That's how I imagine to any of Cobra's love interests because she doesn't seem to comprehend that Cobra in not attracted to her in any way at all. Because, if he was, he would've paid attention to her.

Cobra might need to hire bodyguards then.

Actually.. I felt the same way as Yui and Shizuka about men. So I can't lie about that. Like with Rocky. Besides him being this attractive man, I was conflicted about Rocky as a character because of his protective tendencies towards women and girls. Because as a woman, I thought that, "I don't need to man to take care of me!" Mentality of Yui. But, as time went on (around the time you would find out about Rocky's past by this point), I did find him being protective of men endearing to me. And romantic to protect them. So I tend to have the duality mindset.

you’re tipsy and i’m headache-y/hella tired. let’s see how much of this makes sense from both sides agdjshdjfl

i’ve suddenly forgotten literally every character to ever exist, so i can’t name any characters that i really like that fit into my specific types of characters.

my dad was a big fan of peaky blinders but it’s not really my kind of show so i never watched it. i’ve seen bits and pieces because it was so popular but i’ve never been interested in watching it. i say that a lot. what tf am i actually interested in agshdkdlsls???

i hate war movies! i just find them kind of boring and obviously depressing, but i was never a big fan of modern history in school either so of course i wouldn’t care about movies about wars. gimme ancient history stuff any day. any modern military stuff has me kinda meh.

sci-fi’s the same. i just kinda find it boring. i like space! but idk. sci-fi bores me. could never get into like, star wars or star trek or anything like that. i lean a bit more towards fantasy.

once upon a crime is a movie retelling of classic fairytales (cinderella, red riding hood) but with a mystery detective twist iirc. and informa is a crime drama between an ex-yazuka and a reporter. they both look like they’ll be easy watches at least, since the movie is under 2 hours, and the informa episodes are only about ~30 minutes each and there’s only 10 of them.

i’ve found that the hiTV app is very good for watching asian media. it doesn’t have a huge huge variety but there’s a lot of korean, thai, and japanese stuff on there. and the ads are like, one before each episode at most, not cutting into the middle randomly. it’s updating pretty often and has new and older stuff on it.

slightly off topic, but it’s weird, i feel like i’ve seen nikaido’s actor in something before but i haven’t watched anything else but h&l on his movie/show list? why does he look familiar???

anyway. rot in hell nikaido.

i’m just yoinking the strawberries crushes. i think oshiage would get over it once murayama and ryuko start dating; but yui and junko are probably gonna brawl - or junko’s going to insult her and yui’s gonna go in swinging.

not all relationships have to be romantic, but i do like romance. and ive got a couple friendships working, like ryuko & hyuga, ryuko & kizzykaito, hinami and the other rude boys that aren’t takeshi.

there’s no real reason their names are similar other than i think it’s fun for them and also i might give the ojou npc girls all nature-themed names. (fun fact! sakuragi is cherry blossom tree, ibaraki is thorny tree). i had another reason and thought i’d noted it down but i can’t find it so it’s gone forever.

exactly! like i know the facts! but i still can’t get a solid handle on him! i know he cares deeply for his friends and that he’s a little bit private and that he likes to help his community - like helping that old man move stuff into his shop - and that he likes a sweet treat (buying cupcakes from the twintowers’ store). i know he’s tough and that he’ll never give up on his friends even when they go off the dark side or try to decline his help. i know he’s a horrible drunk. and he only lets loose around his close friends. and he likes to see his friends succeed in life (ie, being proud of noboru). there’s so many facts but i’m still like. who are you?? and also what kinks are you into??

pretty sure it is a photoshoot or an instagram pic, but it is very shizuka to me.

i’m still enabling you if you decide to make more ocs~ and if you decide to write stuff~~

yea, their main colour would be more like magenta-y, with some minor touches of like amethyst or lavender in accessories and such. like how oya’s main colour is dark-ish blue, but they also accent with lighter azures and denim shades. except for the worst full-timers group who didn’t stick with the blue theme ffs.

yui is. not the most friendly person off the bat. she’s a lil bit of a bitch sometimes. but it’s mostly because she’s often fighting to prove herself. people judge her a lot based on her looks (being very short, looking very cutesy, not looking ‘tough’) and they don’t take her seriously; after so long of it happening, she assumes it’s what people are thinking about her and gets kinda argumentatively defensive. she needs the murayama humbling treatment and she’s also getting it from cobra; except instead of physically fighting her, he’s helping her open up and breaking down her walls.

if orange is warm like sunshine, yui is searing like a wildfire. orange is inviting and friendly, yui is to be avoided unless she’s in a good mood. people like orange almost immediately because she’s nice and sunshiny, yui takes some getting used to because she’s a lil rude/hostile because she’s assuming the worst from people.

alternatively, i think yui would really get along with naomi because naomi wouldn’t take any of her attitude and give it right back. and yui would respect her for it and also for running itokan by herself. i could see the two of them (and probs shizuka too) drinking together. also when yui and cobra get closer, naomi would like that cobra’s cheering up and being less broody.

he doesn’t need bodyguards, he’s got noboru and yamato. both of them are (slightly) taller than murayama and way taller than yui. manhandle murayama away with an arm around the neck, just scoop yui up.

shizuka’s like ‘it’s romantic!’ and yui’s like ‘i can protect myself! girls aren’t weak!’, but yui also doesn’t want anybody to get hurt for her. she doesn’t like seeing anybody get hurt because they were defending her, guy or girl. yui’s a lil argumentative with rocky and the rascals because their whole deal leans on her personal sensitivity about people assuming she’s weak. shizuka sees it for what it is though: protecting the people you care about because you care about them, not because you think they’re weak.

round - what 3? of random ojou girls headcanons

yui:

she wears fake/clip-on earrings because girls will rip out actual earrings if they can get their hands on them. (including yui actually). the girls at ojou who do have pierced ears either take out their piercings or wear studs.

yui loves sweet things and can’t stand bitterness. she loves bubble tea and every single coffee drink she’s ever drank has been mostly milk/flavouring.

she’s a fan of cute things. collects key chains and cute stationary and lil figurines, absolutely blows all her spare change on gachapon machines.

she sucks at claw machines, which she’s so pissed about because some of the plushies are so cute but she can’t win them! (that’s a potential shortfic idea, cobra winning her claw machine prizes on a date).

her parents were pretty absent in her childhood. they were big into their jobs and left yui with her grandmother often. eventually, yui started living alone in her midteens with her parents paying for her small apartment in oya/ojou territory and sending her a monthly allowance.

shizuka:

like aforementioned in my last post, she loves romance media (movies, books, shows), but she hates horror movies about ghosts/spirits/demons/etc because she’s a believer in that stuff and doesn’t want to invite it into her life.

shizuka is the oldest of three in her household, which is probably why she attached to yui so easily since she was already a big sister figure. she was actually adopted by her aunt because her mother was young and unmarried when she got pregnant; so to hide it, shizuka was raised by her aunt. her aunt and uncle later had two sons and shizuka loves her younger cousins.

stealing it from draken and mikey, but shizuka sometimes carries yui around if she’s tired. or if yui’s getting too fired up about something stupid, shizuka will just pick her up and carry her away (happens often at claw machines because yui will kick the machine if she gets pissed off enough. and then probably cry if she gets even further passed that ‘pissed off’ point. she just wants the toy!).

#tj answers #long post //#long post anon

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talokanda-forever · 1 year

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The weather has been kinda whack here in the West Coast and we're expecting a winter storm for the rest of the week, so we're bracing ourselves for some wind and rain which is very much needed in this drought. I'm doing a lot better today than I was this weekend and I have an extra Claritin with me for emergencies if it gets bad, just in case! I love hearing your thoughts on Son of Monarchs! Tbh I was expecting it to be more dramatic (maybe I've seen too many Filipino dramas and was expecting the theatrics lol), but I do like it was more subtle and subdued. Tbh, I didn't like it much at first because it felt slow. But the more I think about it, the more it sticks with me, and I end up liking it more than I originally thought. It made me think of the recent losses I've had and how I'm handling my grief, and I agree with what you said, it's so interesting to see how Mendel and his brother cope. One thing that stood out to me though was I was surprised how much older his brother was? In the flashbacks they looked like they were maybe a couple years apart, but in present day, his older brother looks so much older than him, I would've thought he was like a tio or another older cousin. And that scene in the hallway- it's expected maybe they'd be blowing up in each other's face and it reminds me of the dynamics I see in my family whenever we argue (especially since my fam are one of the few in the States while the rest of our family is back home in the Philippines), but I do like how again, it was more subtle. It wasn't explosive, and sometimes if it's on the quieter side, it's much more heartbreaking.

Also the tattoo with the butterfly ink ... idk if that'd work in real life, but it took me a while to understand the symbolism behind it and the reasoning Mendel had when he got the tattoos. I thought it was going to be a trail of butterflies all along his arm, but I love how it was fragments of it along his arms, chest, and back. I loved that visual and it was so creative! And it ain't a Tenoch movie if he doesn't have at least one (1) shirtless scene 😉

Ok, this took me WAY too long to respond. Work is still kicking my ass. In fact, I put in a full day today and I don't work weekends. Oof! Anyway, I wasn't really sure what to expect with the movie, but enjoyed it on the first viewing. And if I like a movie, I will watch it multiple times to make sure I'm picking up on all the subtleties. I'm a movie nut so I love doing that. This is one I've seen multiple times. The Mexican cast had the strongest performances. The others were just "meh" for me. Except for the dude playing the tattoo artist. He was awesome. I wouldn't be surprised if he were actually a tattoo artist and not just an actor. I hadn't thought about how much older Mendel's brother looked compared to him, but you're absolutely right. I looked up his age and he's about 11 years older than Tenoch. The characters don't have that much difference in their ages, but him looking older certainly fits. You definitely gets hints that his life in Mexico was much more taxing than Mendel's life as a biologist. Plus, having gone through AND remembering his childhood trauma certainly wouldn't help. I really do enjoy movies that incorporate symbolism. Probably because I also like solving puzzles. And yes, I thought it was creative the way they did his tattoo. Oh, and Tenoch gorgeous as hell and shirtless is the icing on the cake. 😁

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dreamkidddream · 3 years

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I’m the Doll!MC Anon and I just wanna say I’m so glad that you enjoy a soft/delicate!MC and I really didn’t expect it to get so much love!

Since I kinda want to be evil and see the boys be overprotective, can I request hc’s of them seeing Doll!MC getting hurt by some lesser demon that bumps her into the ground and she gets a bruise? 🌚

Omg Doll Anon I wasn’t expecting it to get so much love either (here’s the original Doll!MC HCs if anyone wants to read)!! So I actually had your request saved for when I was done with the prompt special bc it’s so good, so I decided to combine them and I have definitely been waiting to write this 😈😈 Reader is gender neutral!

CW: mention of blood (nothing graphic) and spoilers for Lesson 16 (Lucifer, Mammon, Beel, and Belphie’s part)

The Brothers and Diavolo with Doll!MC who Gets Hurt

Lucifer

Okay whoever is dumb enough to hurt you in front of him deserves this 100%

The air around this man is already more than intimidating, so whoever tries this is a poor, stupid soul

When he saw you fall down the stairs, he felt his stomach turn. He already caught you before you could injure yourself further, but after seeing the blood coming down your face, the damage was already done

Now, Lucifer is the brother who always has control over himself and what he does. But, we also know that how his temper can get, especially when it comes to his family

This demon is dumb enough to push you but not dumb enough to crack a smile in front of him, especially with how tense Lucifer is getting right now

He sat you up and tried to remember some first aid techniques to stop the bleeding. You’re on the verge of losing consciousness, but you’re okay right now. He’ll take you home, but first-

His glare is making the demon freeze in place right now, and the anger radiating off of him is petrifying

How dare- how dare this fool harm you, in front of him no less?! Did they think that he wouldn’t do anything? That Lucifer, the Avatar of Pride, one of the strongest demons to ever grace the Devildom, would just idly stand by and let this happen?

He’s stalking towards them, and he can feel his fangs showing and his diamond appearing on his forehead, growling out how they will pay for this-

But he’s stopped by Lord Diavolo, who was shocked by the scene. You’re unconscious, and Lucifer has this poor student hanging in the air by their uniform, claws ready to slice through them. Needless to say, he understands why his close friend is upset, but for everyone’s safety he should just take you home like planned

You thought Lucifer was a helicopter parent before? You haven’t seen NOTHING yet

He would start inviting you more to his room to sleep in his bed while he works away, and it started happening so much that he didn’t even ask anymore and started expecting you to always be in there

So instead of him being glued by your side, you’re glued to his. It’s obvious that he can’t let you out of his sight without something happening (again), so hope you’re ready to see experience Lucifer’s daily routine from sunrise to sunset and a whole new set of rules. Basically playing follow the leader, but with a lot more handholding and kisses

You had to practically beg to be back into the kitchen, and he only relented when he could be the one to supervise you, and even then he still didn’t want to hold anything sharp or be near anything that could injure you (which is pretty much everything)

The main one to put a stop to his brothers’ schemes, handing out harsher punishments than before each time they try to involve you. This man is not playing any games with anyone

You know he means well, he was already overprotective from the start, and this is just his way of showing that he cares about you. You can tell every time he gives you that soft look in his eyes, and the regret that he shows every time he catches sight of your bruise. He may not like to be vulnerable, but he couldn’t hide his emotions from you too long. You’re like a weakness to him, one that he isn’t against indulging in

And he hasn’t forgotten about that student, oh no. He made sure to have a nice lengthy chat with them when you both returned to RAD. You didn’t question it when he informed you that the student had been rightfully punished and no longer an issue, and you tried to ignore the red dots splattered on his shoes, or that sadistic gleam in his eyes...

Mammon

This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening-

The blood is pouring from your head, and your eyes are closing too fast for him, and his heart stops

You look lifeless, like when Belphie killed you, when he was too late to save you-

He’ll never forget that image, it’s drilled deep into his mind, forever a reminder of his failure to protect you. And now he failed again-

This demon is gloating about this, and that’s when he snaps

He was already in his demon form and beating the life out of them when he was restrained. Many people were shocked that he was capable of this, that Mammon the scumbag, Mammon the dummy, Mammon the punching bag was capable enough to be this dangerous, this deadly. He’s the second born after all, and he’s the strongest right under Lucifer himself, and he holds a lot in

He could- he would do a lot more because they deserve it, but just seeing you so still, it snaps him out of it. You’re more important to him than getting his anger out, and you’re the one he needs to be focusing on right now. But rest asssured, this isn’t over

You thought he was attached to you before? He is glued to your side 24/7 and will not be leaving anytime soon. Ever since you woke up he never let go of you, calling you “his human” and just hugging you tight

Also if you have to go down the stairs you guys are FLYING no exceptions! The stairs are the devil in his eyes (how ironic) and he will not be risking anything with you

If you guys aren’t out and about under his careful and watchful eye (and I mean very careful, he’s like your very own bodyguard but with a lot more growling and snapping on strangers than usual), then you’re in his room doing whatever. Watching movies, playing cards and somehow beating him every time (he swears that he isn’t letting you win! Lies), whatever you wanna do. As long as you’re with him, giggling and safe, he’s happy and stress free

You mean so much to Mammon MC, he can’t even tell you if he tries. Under his tsundere traits, he really loves you, like really loves you! He’s just so scared of being rejected and losing you a second time. But now that he knows you’ll always be there for him, he’s going to do the same for you (but he already was even if you didn’t like him) He hates looking at that bruise right now, but it’s set as a reminder to not let something happen to you again

Also, another thing that people forget about Mammon is that he can talk to crows. So it wasn’t much to have them track down the person who caused you pain, and it didn’t take long for him to find them either. He thinks that the aftermath will set a good lesson for everyone else who continues to underestimate him when it comes to you: don’t

Leviathan

See, this is why he never leaves his safe haven AKA his room!

After he saw your head hit the ground hard, he was freaking out. He doesn’t know what to do, he wasn’t prepared for this! He tried shaking you to keep you awake, but your eyes were steady closing

Everything is happening in slow motion. You’re slumped over on the ground while the person who did it is laughing at him

If anything, the person who did it should be the one on the ground, not you, not his Henry. It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair!

The demon stopped laughing when their windpipe was getting crushed by the second. They couldn’t even try to loosen the grip, Levi’s tail is rather strong, and so is he. He is the third strongest out of his family and the Grand Admiral of the Navy, yet people tend to forget that

Everyone knows how bad Levi’s tantrums can be, but this isn’t just a tantrum, it’s much worse. Had the brothers not intervene, he would have done much worse than summoning Lotan (which he was on the brink of doing anyway)

When you did wake up, he was so upset. Of course he let this happen, he’s just a worthless otaku who couldn’t even keep his crush safe-

OMG why are you hugging him and patting his head?! Quit it- well wait, this does feel kinda nice...Ugh you’re such a normie! Getting hurt so easily and still trying to put a smile on his face. But it does make him feel better

He rarely left his room before, and you guys are definitely not leaving it now. It’s like having a sleepover, but it never ends. That sounds great, right MC? Endless marathons of TSL and other anime, co-op video games, trying on his cosplay outfits that he made (some even made just for you and he needs to cover that bruise somehow), it’s going to be so fun and you’ll be safe with him! Who wouldn’t want that??

We all know that Levi is very self conscious. He knows that he isn’t confident like Lucifer and Mammon, or attractive like Asmo, or smart like Satan or Belphie, or physically fit like Beel, he knows. But every time you listen to him ramble on about this new anime show that he wants you guys to binge, or when he rants about a stupid move his teammate did in an online match, he feels valued. He feels loved. And while it’s hard for him to express his feelings, it’s no doubt in his mind that you’re important to him, and that he’s beyond happy that someone like you is his best friend

One day he’ll get the courage to say those three words, but he hopes that you already know with everything that he does for you

For example, Levi is an aquatic demon, and he has the ability to communicate with all types of sea creatures. Granted, he knows right from wrong, but in his eyes he’s taking care of the problem. So it wouldn’t be a huge issue if he used them to clean up the remaining mess of said problem, right? I mean, his venom can only do so much, and he doesn’t need anyone questioning him, and Lotan does get hungry...

Satan

He could only see red. Both from his anger surfacing and from the fact that you’re bleeding

He had his claws wrapped around the neck of the one responsible before they could even think about running. This- this filth dared tried to escape after he hurt you? And they thought that Satan would just let them get away with it?

They must forget that he’s the Avatar of Wrath, the one who doesn’t show mercy

He just kept pounding the demon into the ground, over and over and over and over. He didn’t even care about the blood splatter it was leaving on the lockers or on him

He was this close to finishing them off when he heard you call out for him, and it took everything in him to drop them. He squeezed their neck a final time, not even close to being satisfied with the whimper he heard, and growled out a promise of that he will find them and will make sure that they suffer before he threw them down. They better count themselves lucky that they get to crawl away in one piece (for now), because had you not been there-

Oh, he is seething the more he thinks about it

But you bleeding is a distraction from it, even if it is making his stomach turn, it’s helping him know that he needs to help you now

He didn’t have to let his brothers know as they came to see what the commotion was, and Lucifer (even if he didn’t want to believe it himself) was anxious that he was the cause of it. But after he saw the hold he had on you and another demon barely clinging onto life, he knew otherwise

It was decided that you two going home would be the best course of action (which it didn’t matter to Satan, you both weren’t going to stay here whether it was demanded or not), and he calmed down enough to properly treat you

You didn’t leave his room for the rest of the day, and he even gave up his bed for you to lie in so that he can do some research. The human body is a complicated thing, but Satan can learn it like the back of his hand just for you. So just go ahead and rest for now MC- or maybe not, you might have a concussion according to this book and if you do he needs to monitor your condition!

Even after you were healed, he didn’t let you out of his sight and daily checkups were a must. Dr. Satan is in the building!

You eventually moved back into your room (you would have stayed longer but he’s a little nervous with his towering stacks of books and doesn’t want anymore accidents), but he practically moved in with you with how much he comes over, either falling asleep at your desk reading a book or falling asleep in your chair right next to your bed

Very reluctant to have you around stairs, it makes the hairs on his neck stand up. He’ll let you go down the stairs ONLY if you’re holding his hand. If you’re upset with those conditions (spoiler alert you’re not), then you better be ready to learn some teleportation spells (but even then he’s still not leaving your side)

He doesn’t hold his temper back with the others when it comes to you for the time being. If he even senses that Mammon, Asmo, or Levi is coming to you with something that can cause trouble, he’s growling at them to leave you alone, horns slowly coming out and tail whipping furiously

However, he tries not to lash out in front of you. He realizes that he lost control with that demon, and how it could have terrified you had you been fully conscious, but he doesn’t want you to think that he’s just a monster. He wants you to continue to treat him like you do now, and not have the image of bashing someone’s bloody body on the floor repeatedly

Speaking of bashing someone, Satan made well on his promise of coming back. The demon thought that avoiding coming back to school would save them, but Satan is a genius, and has many associates that he can sweet talk to get what he wants. It didn’t take much to figure out where they went, and he made sure to get out all of his pent-up frustrations from that fateful day. He felt better when he came home, but he needed to take a shower before he went to see you...

Besides from that, he does appreciate the peace that you do bring him. You just have this aura around you that’s so calming to him, and he needs to steal you away more he realizes

Also you make better cat-themed desserts than the cafe and he can’t risk Beel eating them all again

Asmodeus

He’s shook, and not in the good way

He just had your hand in his, complaining about how you cuticles look so good and his is lacking and how guys have to go to the nail salon after class, and then your hand is jerked from his, your form at the bottom of the stairs

The blood staining your uniform is alarming, but he can’t worry about that now. He’s trying to keep you talking, but you’re already on the verge of passing out

“MC, you can’t sleep yet! We have plans to go to the nail salon remember? And I need you awake so we can talk about what matching color we’re getting! So what color should we get now, MC? MC? MC!”

He’s trying to keep himself from panicking, but he can’t help it! You’re suppose to be smiling and laughing with you, loving him, but you’re unconscious on the ground, and he’s scared

Quickly dials Lucifer and tells him the whole situation, and he’s surprised to find himself blinking back tears

The demon who did this is long gone by the time Lucifer and Diavolo come, but he remembers the face, and he has something exciting planned when he comes face to face with them

Obviously you have to go home, but Asmo is so distraught that he has to go home with you. But when you wake up, prepare to be tackled to the bed with him crying his eyes out. All you can do is try to comfort him and tell him that okay, giving him little kisses on his cheek

But now that the sadness is out of the way (all this crying and worrying is causing him stress wrinkles), it’s time for a makeover/stress relief!

Fashion shows, makeovers, painting nails, face masks, the whole nine yards. All in the comfort of his dazzling room!

It’ll make you both feel and look better, and honestly you two need that right now. It also gives him the opportunity to cover that unappealing bruise. Your beauty outshines it but it’ll be best to cover it up for your and his sake (mainly his)

Every time Asmo sees your bruise, he gets upset and he’s tired of being reminded of what happened. He knows that he’s only loved for his looks, his vanity, but you see more in him than that

You’re...you’re the first person that loves him for him entirely, not because of his features. And when he tells you that he loves you, he honestly means it. He would have never thought he would fall so deep for someone, let alone a human, but...he’s glad that it’s you. He’s happy that it’s you

Which is why he wants to keep you safe and injury-free. Plus, your skin is too pretty and doll-like to be roughed up!

You guys still go out of course, he just has a better eye on you now. This one incident isn’t going to hold him back for picking out new cute outfits for you!

And don’t think he forgot about that demon who caused all of this in the first place. He actually waited by their locker, and convinced them to come with him. But what should Asmo do with them? He could always have them steal Beel’s food, annoy Lucifer, say something horrible about Ruri-Chan, the possibilities are endless! As long as they don’t cause him to get dirty, of course

Or maybe they should do something so severe that they have no reason than to leave RAD forever, or even leave the Devildom forever, depending on how far he’s willing to take it. He’ll do anything if it means you’re safe and he gets to keep you all to himself

Beelzebub

He thought it was an accident at first, you get so excited about things that you stumble over your own feet sometimes, but he’s always there to catch you or pick you up

You keep saying that you’re okay as he’s holding onto you, and after he sits you up he’s confused because he smells blood. His heart is beating a little quicker, and you’re not talking anymore, and your head is drooping, and that’s when he sees the blood running down the side of your face

He’s starting to panic, and he’s so scared that if he tightens his hold against you he’ll just make things worse, that he’ll just hurt you more. But he needs to go find Lucifer, he needs to get you help, you’re feeling so light in his arms and it reminds him of the Celestial War when he witnessed his sister dying-

He hears someone snickering behind him, and that’s when he loses his temper

You’re a part of his family now, someone that he loves and cares for more than he can describe, and they did this to you? Someone who wouldn’t even squish a bug, someone who made him late night snacks without even asking, always there to give him hugs after his games no matter how sweaty, someone that put his family back together and they did this to you?

Lucifer and Mammon struggled to hold him back after they found the demon flung through the wall, laying under the rubble. Beel just kept growling, fangs bared and wings buzzing. He won’t stop trying to get out of their hold, and he keeps inching closer and closer to the demon, and it’s only a matter of time before he finishes what he started

You were already in the infirmary getting treated, and Beel isn’t calming down anytime soon so you were both escorted home

You woke up to Beel upset and pouting. He’s so worried about you that he couldn’t even eat. Beelzebub could not eat, that’s how you knew this was a something serious

Poor Beel was so terrified of hurting you himself that he failed to protect you from the people that do want to hurt you, or worse

But this won’t happen again, he swears, both to you and himself. Move over Mammon, Beel is officially your new bodyguard!

Wherever you go, Beel is right behind you, literally. He’s like your shadow, just bigger and a lot more...menacing. Also isn’t taking any chances with Mammon’s schemes, just carrying you away before he can even open his mouth about another get rich quick plan

Speaking of carrying, you are not allowed to walk down the stairs anymore. As soon as you step near some you find yourself in his arms like it’s nothing. Both at home and at school, it doesn’t matter to him

Also he’s very cautious to have you around people besides his brothers, and the exchange students (but he’s still hesitant about Solomon, anyone who can cook food like him is automatically getting the side eye)

Also you practically moved in with the twins, and it’s nothing compared to the sleepovers before. Belphie sleeps easier, Beel’s stomach is satisfied (eating your homemade sweets with you is better than everything combined at Hell’s Kitchen, and trust me he knows) he feels all warm inside, and you’re protected. Everyone’s happy!

Beel is a sweet guy, just don’t come in between his family or his food. After that whole incident with the demon, everyone has come to understand that, especially after seeing just how much damage he caused both to the demon and the school in so little time...

Belphegor

If he was sleepy before, he’s completely awake now

You’re holding the side of your head, and he can see the blood seeping through your fingers, groaning in pain. You keep trying to say that you’re okay, but your words are starting to slur and he’s getting nervous, he’s getting scared

It’s reminding him too much of his worst mistake, of what he did to you, when he murdered-

No. He doesn’t need to be thinking about that right now, especially when the person who did this is bragging about it while your body is slumped over. Right there, he knows what exactly needs to be done

Belphie was already in front of them before they even registered it, and didn’t give him any time to form an excuse. His claws were already at their throat, inching deeper and deeper the more they swallowed

“I should just slit your throat now, it’ll be easy and not a lot of work. But you deserve much worse than that. You’ll wish I did by the end of this.”

After a tap to the demon’s forehead, they just collapsed before him, unmoving. He didn’t even look down when he stepped over them (or rather stepped on them) to get to you. You’re passed out, but still breathing. You can’t stay here like this, and he refuses to tell Diavolo or Lucifer. He’ll figure something out, maybe Satan has some books in his room on what to do...

When you woke up, you found yourself wrapped in blankets and Belphie sleeping beside you, arms wrapped tight. You were confused, when did you get home? You remember walking with him down the stairs, but everything was blurry after that. What happen-

“You’re always thinking so hard MC, you’ll never be able to get good rest if you keep that up. But Satan did say to check on you every couple of hours, so I guess it’s fine. And quit touching your head!”

“Oh, sorry Belphie, I didn’t mean to-”

“Tch, how annoying...”

But he’s lying. Even as he’s carefully re-wrapping the bandages, he’s relieved that you’re awake, that your eyes are still full of life, not like the dullness that he saw that fateful night

When Lucifer finds you he is not happy with Belphie, but he doesn’t care and tells him that everything is already under control and that he isn’t needed. Belphie didn’t miss the scowl that he sent his way, but he just smirked in response. You didn’t need Lucifer as Belphie is already taking care of you, as it should be

You know how he always carries around his favorite pillow? Yeah he’s doing that with you basically, minus the carrying. You’re practically attached to his side, wherever he goes you’re either right there with him or in his room, which is mainly just you two lazing around or sleeping (as usual)

Honestly, the only demons who he’s okay with disturbing you two is Beel and maybe Satan. Beel because that’s his twin and it’s his room too, and Satan only if he’s checking on you medically or if he has some new ideas to mess with Lucifer. Everyone else is just trying to bother you and be annoying, and you don’t need that

Of course he blames himself for this! How is he suppose to keep you safe, to make up for his mistake? But then it clicks

It’s not the fact that he’s weak, people think that he’s weak. But he realizes that this is fine, he’ll use that to his advantage.

Diavolo is upset and Lucifer is running out of excuses for him, but Belphie just plays stupid and says he can’t remember how to remove it (even though he does). Let the demon lose some more sleep until they learn their lesson, whether it’s from the constant nightmares or from sleep deprivation trying to stay awake to avoid said nightmares. He’ll remove it when he feels like it, and he doesn’t see that happening anytime soon

Let people think the Avatar of Sloth is weak, that he’s not a threat, and he can show them exactly how wrong they are. Better yet, this demon can be the perfect example, and many more if they become a bother to you (and him)

You’re too nice MC, too delicate. You treat him so good, like he’s not a demon, like he’s not the monster who took your life, and he has to thank you for that somehow. He feels like whatever he does won’t be enough for the kindness you give him, but protecting you from others who used to be like him could be a good start

Also now he can hog all of your head pats and cuddles for himself, and he doesn’t feel bad at all. Everyone else had their time with you when he was locked up, so he’s finally got the opportunity to be selfish

Diavolo

First of all...this demon is dumb enough to harm you in front of him??? The Demon LORD???? The FUTURE KING OF HELL??!

They have more than just a death wish

It all happened so quick, he just crossed paths with you in the hallways and started to ask about your day (and maybe invite you for a small tea date after school) but he didn’t even get the chance to open his mouth

One second he saw your eyes light up and hand extended to excitedly wave, then he saw your fragile form tumbling down the stairs

Barbatos was soon called to his side as Diavolo saw the red coating his palms and you barely staying conscious, trying to say that you’re okay and not to worry

See...he feared that this would be a problem. While Diavolo is a very kind and understanding ruler, there are still some demons out there who think he’s too lenient, too soft. But that’s where people are mistaken. Diavolo is kind, but do not mistake his kindness for weakness

He felt his anger rising, his demeanor starting to crack, but he set aside his emotions. You’re his first priority, and he needs to make sure that you’re okay! He’s still a ruler, and you’re his responsibility (and first love)

However, he made sure that Barbatos took the demon who did this and kept them in the dungeon until he was done treating you. He won’t let this go unpunished, he can’t and he won’t

You’re an important part of the exchange program, and you’re most important to him, and he’s upset with himself that you got hurt. You’re so delicate, and you don’t deserve any of this happening to you, but what can he do? While he trusts the brothers to keep you safe, he wants to keep an eye on you personally, but how?

Then it struck him

You liked to stay in the castle, always smiling and having fun whenever you spent time with him there, so why not relocate you there?? It’ll be like an extended sleepover/retreat with just you two!! You guys can do all of your favorite activities and won’t have to worry about going home because you won’t have to leave!! Why didn’t he think of this sooner?!

The brothers are very upset with this incident, and even more so when he announced this. Diavolo decided that your condition needed to be monitored closely, and since he’s the person directly in charge of the exchange program AND the ruler over the Devildom, there was no room to argue. You weren’t going to stay in the castle forever, just until he deemed it right to return to the HoL

Which would be...some time soon, maybe. He’s not really worried about that now, his number 1 concern is you after all!

You’re getting the royal treatment, literally. This is the chance that he gets to pamper you without interruptions and he is not wasting it!

You kept trying to convince him that you’re fine, but he wasn’t hearing any of it, especially after he sees the nasty bruise that was left. “MC, please! You still need to rest. How about I have Barbatos bring us some tea to help, and we can even have the royal staff bring us some outfits of your choosing if you like? Oo, we can even have our portrait painted!”

“Dia, I promise that I’m fine, you have more things to worry about than me-”

“Nonsense, MC. You’re what’s important to me, now and always. Don’t ever forget that.”

Even finished it with a hand kiss, UGH he really is a Prince Charming

Once you did return to RAD bruise free, Diavolo, being the gentleman that he is, walked with you everywhere in the beginning. Coming into the building, walking to class, lunch, even to the student council meeting, he was by your side. But he couldn’t avoid his duties forever (unfortunately), but he always made up for lost time afterwards

You never realized that when he wasn’t with you, someone else always was. Whether it be Lucifer who miraculously had spare time, or Barbatos who decided to escort you back to the castle to try a new recipe for his Lord, it was always one of them that stayed with you

Also, it never dawned on you why people were starting to be so nice to you. You thought it was because of what happened, not paying attention to how tense they would get, the fear in their eyes. You did notice that the demon who caused your fall never came back to class, and their desk is starting to collect dust...

When you did ask Diavolo about it, he just pat your head and said that what happened was unacceptable and that the demon has been dealt with accordingly.

You don’t need to hear about what really happened to them, he doesn’t want to scare you or taint your innocence! But he doesn’t mind if anyone else hears it, he’ll be more than happy to explain in full detail what happened and what will happen to demons that even think about attempting to harm you or think that he’s “too soft”. They won’t think he’s a soft ruler after that

Diavolo is a very sweet man, one that treats you as if you’re ruling by his side as his partner and one that you never have to be scared of, but even you didn’t miss the deadly glint in his eyes whenever he spoke about that demon...

But enough about that, he wants to try that new recipe that you made just for him!

He enjoys the time that he gets to spend with you, and after this, you’ll be in his company a lot more. He can’t risk having this happen again to his love- I MEAN favorite exchange student right?

#obey me x reader #obey me reader insert #obey me #obey me swd #obey me lucifer x reader #obey me mammon x reader #obey me levi x reader #obey me leviathan x reader #obey me satan x reader #obey me asmodeus x reader #obey me asmo x reader #obey me beelzebub x reader #obey me beel x reader #obey me belphegor x reader #obey me belphie x reader #obey me diavolo x reader

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aftgtrash · 2 years

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All of us are dead rant

warning: its a rant so it will have spoilers and second it very long

Shut up I just finished all of us are dead and let me just say WHAT THE FUCKK

I honestly don't know how I feel about this show atm. I still don't like on-jo, and cheoung-san deserved better. SHE IS SO FUCKING OBLIVIOUS, literally everyone in the group knew that cheoung San had feeling for her, and the reason why su-hyeok never accepted her confession(aside from the fact that he liked namra). I hate her obsession with su -hyeok. Always him this and him that.

And She had the option to reject him but she had to be all "i lost all my FRIENDS"(cause cheoung-san confessed to her????) bullshit like no stop what, and for the fact he also told her that she doesn't need to give him an answer for his confession. I know that she didn't know about cheoung-san's feeling but always talking about Su-hyeok is kinda annoying and especially that one scene from when they were in the musical room. And if the ribbon on that tree which say, ‘Cheoung-san I love you’ is hers I’m so done like bitch no first you hurt him and now that he is gone you finally realize your feelings for him?? That is considering that she meant that ‘I love you’ in a romantic way, if its platonic then i fine with it.

*Sigh*

Anyways moving on,

The found family trope was so good in this show???? Especially the last scene where they go back to the school to look for namra. That had me sobbing. I lowkey hoped that it was cheoung-san instead. I also liked how they didnt give Cheoung-san equal power as Nwa-gim and had them fight when clearly he was overpowered.Let me just appreciate how well this show was executed, the direction, the dialogues, the camera angles, the acting, the make up of every zombie and every wound. I also loved the Train to Busan reference in the show.

Character rant,

I love dae-su he's my favourite character, like no problem dude so what if your crush doesn't like you back I'm here have me instead. the song he sang while they were leaving msgs for someone to see made me cry. And I'm actually glad he survived till the end.

I also loved how namra opened up to everyone and started showing more emotions cause before all she had was a straight face. And the last scene with her was so badass.

And let me just say that no matter how shitty nwa-gim was he made an amazing villain. Villains are supposed to make you furious and frustrated and he managed that so well, I abused my pillow alot while watching him on the screen.

Mi-jin is another amazing character of the show. She the type who everyone thinks in shallow but is the most emotional one. Like how broken she was when Jun yeoung and jun seong died.

mijin and ha-ri are my otp, they are so fucking adorable, especially that scene where her brother asks ha-ri about mijin,

Ha-ri: *looks at mijin*: she is my friend

Mijin: *smiles* *blushes* we’re freaking besties

LITERALLY THE CUTEST FUCKING LINE IN THE SHOW.

The detective and the guy from Seoul University were the best duo in the show period. I love how the detective took care of the new born baby and the 4 year old girl even tho he could have left them there since that would have been easy. I stan him so much.

my brother didnt like su-hyeok he said the su-hyeok tried to be the “savior” or “hero” character in the movie but all i saw was how caring that guy was and not just to namra or cheoung-san but to literally everyone. He took care of them, he fought for them, honestly if i were in that situation Id be pretty selfish.

CHEOUNG SAN I LOVE YOU MAN! most of the times its some side character who carries the show but not this time. Cheoung-san carried the entire show! I was rooting for him and now I’m devastated. Main character has the strongest plot armor and they broke his just like that by the end of the show and since AOUAD is based on a webtoon I really hoped that they’d pull a sweet home (another webtoon) with him but NO and I’m lowkey glad?? that could have ruined the impact of the event before. The scene where cheoung san lured all the zombies to him broke me. This quote is probably my favorite: ‘Today I am the happiest guy in this school.’

#cheong san #cheongsan deserved better #all of us are dead #cheongsan supremacy #lee suhyeok #nam ra #onjoh #daesu #mijin #hari #hari x mijin #otp #aouad spoilers #aouad #nwagim #zombies #apocolypse

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a34trgv2 · 3 years

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Why It Worked: The Princess and The Frog

Introduction: The Princess and The Frog is an animated musical fantasy romantic comedy film. Directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, the film stars Anika Noni Rose, Bruno Campos, Keith David, Michael-Leon Wooley, Jim Cummings, Jennifer Lewis, Jennifer Cody, John Goodman, Oprah Winfrey and Terrence Howard. The film was released on December 11, 2009 and recieved very positive reviews from critics and audiences (85% of 200 reviews agregated by Rotten Tomatoes gave an average rating of 7.4/10). The film grossed $269 million on a budget of $105 million. For the past decade, I've grown to love this movie more and more with each passing year. Having rewatched it recently, I now firmly believe this is one of Disney's best films. In this post, I'd like to go into detail as to why.

The Plot: Based on the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale, The Frog Prince, mixed with the material in The Frog Princess by E.D. Maker, this film tells the story of Tiana, a waitress trying to earn enough money to start her own restaurtant. She encounters a talking frog, who's actually Prince Naveen turned into a frog by Dr. Facilier. He agrees to help Tiana get her her restaurant if she helps him turn back into a prince by recreating the classic tale of The Frog Prince. This backfires and now they're both frogs hopping around the buyou with their gator friend, Louis and a cajun firefly named Ray, to find a way to reverse the spell they were put under. The film is really a subversion of classic fairy tale tropes that makes the film feel fresh and new. The goal for our leading lady is not to fall in love with a prince but to make her childhood dream come true. What also makes this film standout is how magical they make New Orleans, paying tributes to jazz music and cajun cuisine. I also found the humor to be very funny, with many of the jokes getting a great laugh out of me. One of the funniest scenes in the film is when Tiana and Naveen outwit a trio of frog hunters. The slapstick and perfect timing had me in stitches. What really makes the story so engaging is the animation. It's too bad Disney hasn't used 2D animation in their recent films (not to say they don't look amazing in 3D) because the animation in the Princess and The Frog is amazing. The character movements feel so smooth and fluid and they're designs are unique and well defined. It should also be noted that some 3D was used for background elements yet are coated with a 2D paint so well you never would've noticed.

Cast and Characters: The cast of this movie did outstanding jobs voicing these characters, who are all well developed and very likable. Starting with our leading lady, Tiana is a smart hardworking woman that's determined to start up her restaurant. She's also sassy, funny and a great cook. Anika Noni Rose was perfect as Tiana as gives the character a very determined and no-nonsense tone in her voice. Prince Naveen starts off as an arrogant playboy that only wants to live a carefree life. However, the more time he spends with Tiana, the more he realizes that not everything is just going to be handed to him. This is especially true during the scene when he and Tiana are making gumbo and he comes to realize he's so used to having everything be done for him that he doesn't even know how to take care of himself. Bruno Campos gave a very stellar performance as Naveen, giving him such charm and funny lines while also selling the more personal aspects of his character. Louis the gator is such a fun comic relief that plays a mean trumpet. He easily brings out some of the best laughs and Michael-Leon Wooley gave a very memorable performance as the character. Ray the cajun firefly just might be one of Jim Cummings' best vocal performances, up there with Darkwing Duck, Pete, and (of course) Winnie The Pooh and Tigger. Ray might appear to have a screw or too loose, but he's actually a really smart, brave and reliable ally who's more than willing to help his friends. His love for Evangeline (which is actually the North Star) feels very genuine even if it might come across as odd at first. Then there's the film's made baddie, Dr. Facilier (often referred to as The Shadow Man). Dr. Facilier is every bit as charming as he is sinister. He's manipulative, he's smart, he's charsmatic and he loves what he does. Keith David was excellent in the role, giving him a deep yet unsettling tone in his voice.

Super Supporting Players: This film has one of the strongest supporting cast I have ever seen. Each of the supporting and even minor characters leave a lasting impression and make the film feel lived in. Lawrence, Naveen's butler, acts as the secondary antagonist of the film, being the catalyst of Naveen's desire for a carefree lifestyle. He sides with the Shadow Man and poses as Naveen while the prince is a frog in order to marry Charlotte La Bouff. Speaking of Charlotte, is very much nothing like the standard spoiled brat. Rather than be snobbish, selfish and rude, Lottie is a true friend to Tiana and is willing to help her get her restaurant. Believe me folks, after having to deal with the likes of Gem Stone, Princess Morbucks, Sincerity (What About Mimi), and Tricia Holmes (6teen), Charlotte is a breath of fresh air. Her father, Eli (aka Big Daddy) is also a very kind and caring figure who, despite spoiling his daughter, clearly raised her well as she gets her generosity from him. Mama Odie is a wise 197 year old blind lady that not only helps our heroes on their journey, but helps them understand the difference between what they want vs what they need. This is echoed by Eudora (Tiana's Mom) earlier in the film, who even in the limited amount of screen time she had exerts such a motherly personality and has authentic chemistry with her daughter. Then there's James (Tiana's Dad), the main driving force behind Tiana's desire to open her restaurant. Despite succumbing to the frequently used "dead parent" trope, every second he's on screen is imperative to the story. He's a kind hard working man who dreamed of opening his own restaurtant with his daughter Tiana. When she tells her Dad about the wishing star, he gives her great advice: "that little star can only take you part of the way. You got to help it along with some hard work of your own and then you can do anything you set your mind to." What truly makes this supporting cast come alive are the stupendous voice work from the actors who portrayed them. Jennifer Cody was fantastic as Lottie, making her sound so energetic and lively. John Goodman is always a treat to hear and he brings such a humble fatherly presence to Eli. Jennifer Lewis perfectly captures the sass and erratic nature of Mama Odie and is an amazing singer. Peter Bartlett right captured the bumbling mannerisms of Lawrence and when he's disguised as Naveen he exerts more confidence in his voice. Oprah Winfrey, who was also a consultant for the film, played Eudora beautifully as a kind and caring mother and they couldn't have picked a better actor than Terence Howard for the role of James.

Songs and Music: Randy Newman is a musical genius! Every single song in this film is written wonderfully with an awesome beat, wonderful lyrics and the amazing vocal talents of the stars. Starting with the opening track after the lovely melody prologue, Down in New Orleans perfectly introduces the audience to this city and what it's like to live here. The late Dr. John brought such authenticity to the song being a New Orleans native and he had great singing chops. Almost There, Tiana's number, is not so much an I want song, but more like "I'm so close I can almost taste it." Anika Noni Rose has great singing talents and carried that long final note like a champ. The villain song, Friends From The Other Side is (in my opinion) one of the best Disney villain songs. It perfectly captures the charismatic and manipulative nature if Dr. Facilier and Keith David's baritone singing makes this all the more memorable. When We're Human is an upbeat song that showcases the excellent singing talents of Anika Noni Rose, Bruno Campos and Michael-Leon Wooley as they sing about what they'll do when they're human. It also makes great use of the trumpet, the go-to instrument for jazz. Ray is given the distinct honor of singing 2 songs, which are polar opposites yet are both wonderfully well crafted musical numbers. The first is Gonna Take You There, which is a classic cajun song in with Ray sings while he and his firefly family take our heroes to Mama Odie's. It's bounce, it's fun, it's makes great use of the accordion, it's just a great song to listen to. The second is Ma Belle Evangeline, a slow yet beautiful love ballad Ray sings for Evangeline. Even though Ray is singing to a star, it feels very genuine with his mix of French compliments and Louis' slow trumpet playing. Than there's the last musical number before the reprise of the opening track, Dig A Little Deeper. This is my personal favorite song in the film, and that's saying something because they're all great. Dig A Little Deeper incorporates a choir of roseate spoonbills to make it look like a church service on Sunday. It also has a great message behind it about finding what you need versus trying to get what you want. Also, Anika Noni Rose coming in with that extra verse was the perfect cherry on top. In addition to these spectacular musical numbers, Randy Newman also made a very memorable score incorporating strings and strong brass for intense scenes and some soft, subtle tunes for the quiet moments. Where the score truly shines is during Ray's death and funeral. From the sad reprise of Ma Belle Evangeline all the way up to the music slowy but surely picking up as Ray essentially becomes the brightness star in the sky next to Evangeline, this scene best showcases what a great score this film has. The song that plays during the credits, Never Knew I Needed by Ne-Yo, was also the picture bookend to the film, capturing the film's central message in a wonderfully crafted pop ballad with a beautiful piano tune.

Where It Falters: 👆. No, seriously this film is still a 10/10 in my book, but I personally would've amended this response from Lottie to "Travis, when I said later, I really meant not ever." Still shoots the guy down but without making her speak for all women. This concludes my meaningless nitpick.

Conclusion: The Princess and The Frog is without a doubt one of Disney's best films and Tiana is my personal favorite Disney Princess. The animation is spectacular, the characters are great, the songs are all wonderful, the voice acting is superb and it delivers a great message of finding what you need versus trying to get what you want. If you haven't seen this film, I highly recommend giving this film a watch on Disney+ if you have it. Thank you so much for reading and I'll see you soon ;)

This addition of Why It Worked is dedicated in memory of my grandmother, Margaret "Peggy" Simpson. I'll see you in Heaven Grandma.

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dfdph · 3 years

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Spotlight - Prologue

Author D.

Pairing Jungkook x Reader (female)

Warnings Mentions of cyber bullying

Word count 3.5k

Summary “Her stylist had chosen a wonderful black Elie Saab Haute Couture for the occasion. The gown was long, sleek and structured, with overlaying tulle and tafta, the top was semi-transparent, with long sleeves and padded shoulders, and the whole dress was adorned with an intricate golden embroidery that highlighted her figure craftily. Her hair had been pinned neatly in a bun on top of her head, with some twists and braids that she had no way of replicating on her own. The make up artist had played with golden eyeshadow and had drawn a strong and thick black line with the eyeliner, making her gaze sharper and sexier. Y/N looked like a chic princess warrior, ready for battle. And, somehow, she really felt like it. She wasn’t anxious only about the ceremony, she had read the lineup, she had read his name. She knew there was no avoiding him this time: her first love, Jeon Jungkook.”

Award season was the period of the year Y/N hated the most. Despite being in the entertainment industry since she was a teenager - and now being in her late 20s -, she still couldn’t get used to the stress it put her through. She actually looked forward to dressing up and posing in front of dozens and dozens of photographers at the beginning of her career, but now that she had made a name for herself, now that everyone knew who she was, Y/N would gladly stay in her king sized bed watching some movie instead. Unfortunately, even if she wanted to, there was no way she could avoid attending this season’s ceremonies.

The past year had been Y/N’s most rewarding yet. She had been in fact casted by a renowned and award-winning director as the main character of his new historical movie, which turned out highly successful at the box office - earning more than $110,000,000 on its opening weekend - and highly acclaimed by the critics who had praised, not only the cinematography and the intricacy of the plot, but especially Y/N’s performance - described as raw, heartbreaking and graceful. To no one’s surprise, she was soon nominated as Best Actress in most of the award events, winning all of them despite the high competition and enriching the collection of trophies she had displayed in her home office.

When she debuted ten years ago with a minor role in an episode of a television series she only dared dreaming of reaching such a peak in her career. She could have never imagined that she would become one of the highest paid actresses in the industry, that she would afford buying her dream car and her dream house in Los Angeles, and that she would have millions of fans supporting her all over the world. Yet, there she was, getting ready for ‘the dream come true’, the award of the awards: the Oscars. And she, Y/N Y/L/N, had been chosen as the strongest contender in her category: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. She had already been nominated twice before, but this time was different, this time she felt she could actually win. Hence why she couldn’t stop walking anxiously back and forth in the 5 star hotel room her staff had booked for the day.

Her stylist had chosen a wonderful black Elie Saab Haute Couture for the occasion. The gown was long, sleek and structured, with overlaying tulle and tafta; the top was semi-transparent, with long sleeves and padded shoulders, and the whole dress was adorned with an intricate golden embroidery that highlighted her figure craftily. Her hair had been pinned neatly in a bun on top of her head, with some twists and braids that she had no way of replicating on her own. The make up artist had played with golden eyeshadow and had drawn a strong and thick black line with the eyeliner, making her gaze sharper and sexier.

Y/N looked like a chic princess warrior, ready for battle. And, somehow, she really felt like it. She wasn’t anxious only about the ceremony, she had read the lineup, she had read his name. She knew there was no avoiding him this time: her first love, Jeon Jungkook.

Y/N was a completely different woman from who she was back in high school.

She had grown in a very poor family. Her mother had to raise her, alongside her older brother, all on her own, working long hours as a housekeeper for a rich and snob family who mistreated her and paid her just enough so that she couldn’t resign. She was a very sweet woman who had to struggle every day to give her two children the most normal life she could afford. Y/N’s father, on the other hand, was never present: an alcoholic who couldn’t keep a job for more than a month, he regularly failed to pay child support after the divorce and never once made a call to hear from them.

Y/N understood the importance of money early on, in elementary school, when her classmates started teasing her because of her hand-me-down clothes. She was used to wear her brother’s old t-shirts every now and then and never thought too much of it. She didn’t see any difference between the rock bands pictures or the flowery prints, she didn’t realize it mattered. And when she had told her mother that those girls had laughed at her, the woman almost cried, so Y/N decided not to mention it ever again.

Y/N grew up into a very introverted and shy teenager. She wasn’t good with socializing and generally preferred being on her own. Her desire for solitude was so evident that her classmates gave up on their attempts to befriend her and she soon became the lone wolf of their high school. By junior high, she became almost invisible.

Strangely enough, Y/N’s dream was that to become an actress, a profession that required a lot of things she lacked of. Confidence, to begin with, or charisma. The only thing she believed she could do was hide inside the unused storage room on the second floor and play with the old props left by the drama club.

She met Jungkook while doing just that.

The boy was just coming back from the first meeting of the Mathematics Discussion Club - of which he was the president - when he heard someone crying from a room he never noticed before. He opened the door quietly, peeking his head inside the dim lighted room, only to find the silhouette of a girl lying on the floor in a fetal position and seemingly crying her lungs out in pain. She had her hands clutching tightly her head and she was sobbing so hard that she was on the verge of hyperventilating. On instinct, Jungkook rushed to her side, his books, pencils and calculator clattering all over the floor.

“Are you ok?!” he screamed in worry, putting his hands over her shoulders.

Y/N jumped up, her wailing stopping so abruptly that it made Jungkook jump as well. As it turned out, Y/N was doing nothing more than acting the part of a terminally ill girl who was suffering intense head pains - a part she had invented all on her own to test her ability with dramatic scenes. it was something she did quite often. Just the day before she was performing Meryl Streep’s part in “Into the Woods” to an invisible audience.

“I-I’m ok.” she mumbled, drying the fake tears from her cheeks.

“What the hell?” Jungkook murmured, looking at her in astonishment. “What was that?”

“I was ... I was just pretending.” she replied, her voice horse from all the screaming.

“Pretending?” he repeated as he sat bewildered on the dirty floor. “You were pretending to be in pain? Why?!”

Y/N felt the heat rising to her face. This was the first time she had to explain her weird little secret to anyone. “Acting.”

“Acting.” Jungkook repeated once again. “And why are you doing it in here?” he asked looking around the creepy space, with its spider webs and abandoned miscellaneous objects. “What is this place anyways?”

“It was the old storage room of the drama club.” Y/N replied. “They don’t use it anymore. There’s no space left.”

“I can see that.” he said staring at the shelf just above their heads that looked about ready to collapse. “So, I guess you’re not in the drama club?”

“No.” Y/N answered looking down at her crossed legs. She wondered if he was going to snitch on her. She really didn’t want to get in trouble. Besides, it wasn’t like she was doing something that terrible.

“I could tell.” Jungkook replied. “I saw last year’s winter play and, let me tell you, you, crying on the floor 5 minutes ago, were ten times better than that.”

Y/N looked back at him with her mouth open in surprise. She had no idea who this boy sitting crossed legged on the floor with her was, with his white button down shirt and over washed jeans, but he singlehandedly gave her the best compliment she could wish for. “Right?!” she exclaimed sitting straighter. “I thought so too! But everybody else acted as if they saw the best performance of their lives! I knew I couldn’t be the only one who taught that their interpretation of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra was nothing but underwhelming.”

“Damn right.” the boy nodded in agreement. “I actually looked forward to it because I prefer it over Romeo and Juliet, but I was so disappointed. You should have played Cleopatra!” he added in an afterthought. “Why didn’t you?”

Y/N felt herself blush once again. “I never performed in front of anyone.” she confessed. “Apart from my mother an brother, that is.”

“That’s a shame.” Jungkook murmured pensively. “You have real talent, storage room girl. Believe me, I’m an expert.”

Being friends with Jungkook was easy, falling in love with him was even easier. It came so naturally that Y/N didn’t even have the chance to fully realize it before they were officially dating.

He was everything Y/N wasn’t and everything she wanted to be. Even at 16 years old he already was a very confident boy. He was incredibly smart, funny and a little bit nerdy. He didn’t belong to the upper class of their high school social pyramid, nor the middle, but he had no care in matching those standards because he loved himself for who he was - Stark Trek t-shirts, consumed tennis shoes and all.

In the short year the two of them were together, from junior to senior year, Jungkook became the reason behind Y/N’s happiness. She wasn’t aware of how lonely she really had been while asking to be left alone. Jungkook taught her to be open towards the world, to be curious and to believe in herself and her abilities. Thanks to him and his never ending support Y/N came to realize that she wasn’t meant to hide inside the abandoned storage room on the second floor, but she deserved the chance to follow her dreams.

Together they filed their applications for college: Jungkook always wanted to become an aerospace engineer and had set the personal - and ambitious - goal to work for NASA; Y/N, on the other hand, had worked hard during her last year in high school to win a scholarship for whichever Performing Arts College was willing to take her in - it didn’t matter which one because she knew she started her acting career late. All she wanted was to study to become an actress, to perform on stage and bring to life incredible stories, to be someone one day and someone else the other.

But it was such a big dream, something so fickle and risky, that Y/N couldn’t help but being overwhelmed by fear, not only for her future but that of Jungkook’s as well, because after all, despite all the changes she had gone through, a part of her was still hiding from the world. So she did something stupid, something very cliché, that nevertheless seemed the right thing to do at that time: she broke up with him.

It’s for his own good, she had thought. He is brilliant, I don’t want to hold him back.

Jungkook fought her and for her. He was afraid something like this would happen, he was sure it wasn’t what she really wanted, he knew she was just afraid. But Y/N was a very talented actress indeed and for a moment, as she looked straight into his dark eyes and told him she didn’t love him anymore, Jungkook felt his confidence waver.

“I’m really thankful for what you’ve done for me.” she had said. “I wouldn’t be who I am today if it wasn’t for you.”

“Please don’t lie.” he had whispered, trying to stop the angry and disappointed tears from falling from his eyes. “Don’t pretend. Not with me.”

“I’m not.” Y/N replied, her voice firm. “I loved you, I really did. You’ll be my first love forever, Kook.”

And the very next day, just like in one of those cheesy television dramas her mother loved so much, she flew hundreds of miles away from him, trying to not looking back.

If she said she never regretted it over the following years, it would be a lie. As she started her new life, she never failed to think of him. She wondered how he was doing, if his dreams were coming true and if he ever thought of her as much as she did of him. As she grew up and matured, Y/N realized how stupid her choice had been and how important Jungkook’s role had been in shaping her personality and in breaking her shell. Y/N was sure of it: if he didn’t found her that day inside the storage room, she wouldn’t be who she was today.

Years after she broke up with him, Jungkook still popped up into her mind every now and then. She thought of him the first time she was casted for a walk on role in a movie; she thought of him the first time her name was credited in an episode of a TV show; she thought of him the first time she won an award.

She thought of him with regret and a little bit of melancholy. Y/N never forgot him. Not even when when became so famous she barely had the time and energy to think about herself.

The first time Y/N heard his name spoken by someone else’s mouth, three years ago, was a complete shock. She never talked of him to anyone, apart form her mother, her brother and Jimin, her best friend and manager, so he was supposed to be a nobody to everyone else but herself. As it turned out, with a very mysterious turn of events, Jungkook had left the path towards aerospace engineering and had decided to take his chance with acting. And from what Y/N gathered from the overheard conversation, he was starting to make a name for himself as well.

That night, back in her multimillion dollar villa, Y/N researched his name on the internet for the first time.

He was new to the industry and there wasn’t much about him, it was like he popped out of nowhere. But it was definitely Jungkook, Y/N recognized him from the pictures. He had grown into a beautiful man, so handsome that she did a double take and then had to stop herself from drooling. It wasn’t like he was ugly when they were together, but he was just a skinny teenager back then and this was a man, a real man who had lost all of his baby fat and now had a razor sharp jaw and a muscular body. Apparently, he was the protagonist of an ongoing TV series that was gathering a lot of success putting him in the center of the attention. ‘The new heartthrob’, that was how he was being called.

Y/N couldn’t help but wonder what happened after they lost contact with each other that made him change his career so drastically. Whenever she thought about him she imagined him working on some challenging project for NASA, never on a movie set. She remembered he was passionate about theatre and cinema, but never once he had expressed the desire to become an actor like her. Y/N didn’t know what to think.

As the years passed, Y/N watched as his acting career grew, as he starred in a success after the other and as he earned the respect of even the most strict directors and critics.

Y/N watched, yes, but from afar, never daring to contact him and secretly avoiding the chances to meet him again.

She had been successful, until now.

The drive to the Dolby Theatre went far too quick for Y/N’s taste. She could barely remember how she got from the hotel room where she had been preparing to the black luxury van. Before she knew it her stylist was taking away her favorite slippers and was putting on her dress-matching Dolce&Gabbana heels.

Y/N didn’t have the time to think. Three years of running away and finally the moment had come. Jeon Jungkook - her first love, her ‘the one that got away’, probably her biggest regret - was probably in the car behind hers.

“Y/N, two minutes.” Jimin called out, warning her to get ready. “You know the deal. Deep breath and own that red carpet as you always do. And-”

“I know.” Y/N interrupted him. “The left side is my best side.”

The man, dressed up as well in a black tux, gave her a wink. “I’ll be right behind you. You got this.” he declared, looking at her intensely. “This is the one.”

“Thanks, Chim. But from all we know I could be the next Di Caprio.” she joked, the roaring noise from the red carpet now deafening.

“On my dead body.” he smirked. “Talk to you later, princess.”

“Later.” she hugged him briefly. “Oh, can you please make sure my mom and Seokjin got in fine? I totally forgot to call them.”

“Of course. My assistant is with them, anyways.” Jimin said, putting a hand on the door handle. “Ready?”

Y/N took a deep breath, put on her best charming expression and nodded. “Ready.”

As soon as he opened the door, Y/N was immediately hit by the boisterous and echoing call of the fans. She wasn’t sure if it was only her impression but it seemed like every single one of them was screaming her name. She was, indeed, one of the biggest names of the night, there was no use in denying it, but Y/N couldn’t help but wish they stopped making her presence so obvious.

A young usher, pretending not so well to be indifferent and trying to be professional, guided her towards the beginning of the red carpet, hundreds of cellphones following her movements like magnets.

“Please, come this way, miss Y/L/N.” the usher instructed in a slightly trembling voice. “There will be someone from the staff signaling you were to stop to pose for the photographers.”

Y/N knew this already. She had attended countless of events like this, after all. Yet she didn’t say anything to the shy boy, preferring to smile at him sincerely. “Thank you very much.” she said, watching as he blushed violently.

Y/N started her walk, Jimin and her stylist following a few steps behind to make sure that everything went smoothly. The photographers went wild as soon as they saw her, the flashes of their cameras blinding her almost angrily. She was used to it now, she had mastered the trick: squinting sexily and blinking strategically.

As she walked slowly towards the entrance of the theatre, posing with confidence and channeling her best princess warrior, Y/N almost forgot the worries she had about Jungkook, until a new wave of screams echoed to her ears. She stiffened, even if imperceptibly. It was him, the line up said he would be walking right after her.

The time had finally come. Ten years had passed and she was seeing Jeon Jungkook again for the first time.

She continued to walk nonchalantly, every step confident and her chin up and proud. But once she reached the end of the red carpet and the photographers moved their attention away from her, Y/N couldn’t help but stop for a second, ignoring a fellow actress and ‘friend’ waving at her a few feet further.

She could feel him, she could feel his presence behind her back. She could either turn around and catch a glimpse of him, or resume walking and pretend he wasn’t there. It took her a couple of moments of indecisiveness, in which Jimin looked at her questioningly, before taking the umpteenth deep breath of the evening.

She turned, the hem of her $30 000 black dress brushing almost magically over the carpet, and there he was. For a moment the memory of the nerdy boy from high school overlapped the image in front of her. She was well aware of the fact that he wasn’t that teenager anymore, she had seen his pictures, watched his movies and interviews. The boy she remembered was long gone: standing tall and proud, more than twenty feet from her, was now Jeon Jungkook ‘the actor’, dressed in a perfectly tailored night blue tux that highlighted his toned body, black patent leather shoes and impeccably styled hair.

And he was staring - with his dark and deep black eyes - right back at her.

#bts #bts fanfic #purplearmynet #bangtanarmynet #thebtswritersclub #bts jeon jungkook #bts jungkook #jeon jungkook #jungkook #jungkook angst #jungkook fluff #jungkook romance #dfdph #spotlight

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berryjam17 · 3 years

Text

Remedy

Jin x f. reader [in smut scene. relatively g/n for the rest ( 'butterfly' could be considered a more feminine nickname)]

Synopsis: Life has left you scarred and unwilling to get too involved with anyone else.

Kim Seokjin is stubborn. Kind. Capable of soothing your wounded spirit.

Warnings: chronic illness, hints of IBD throughout for Y/N and Jungkook, one very in-your-face implication that Y/N has IBD in the beginning, internalized ableism, swearing, unprotected sex, little bit of dom!Jin / sub!Y/N, oral (F receiving), fingering (F receiving)

Word Count: 6k

repost, I had to fix some issues.

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The waiting room was hushed, with the tapping of keys from the receptionist’s desk as background noise. You glanced expectantly at the clock, disappointed when only two minutes had passed. It was 6:17 PM, and you doubted your roommate would arrive before 6:40. Lisa was a graduate teaching assistant at the local college. She’d left a message explaining that she had to print off a paper before she could drive your car back.

This late in the day, there was one other person waiting. You studied him, more out of boredom than anything else.

Black hair fell in waves to frame his forehead and eyes. He was dressed casually in a soft pink hoodie and jeans, his rings reflecting the overhead light as he skimmed through a magazine.

He abandoned it briefly, lifting his head to lock eyes with you. His lips twitched. A frown? A smile? You couldn’t tell.

He flipped the magazine around and held it up, so that you could see the pages he’d been on. It was a painting of a cherry tree in full bloom, with hints of a cerulean sky between the branches.

Beautiful.

The next spread was for Crohn’s and Colitis Awareness Month. His brow furrowed as he witnessed you retreat into your shell, looking anywhere but at him.

Realization dawned when he saw the contents. “I’m sorry. I didn’t-”

The door to the E.R. clicked open, interrupting him, and a younger man crossed the threshold. Magazine Man shot to his feet and hurried over to him. “How are you feeling, Kook?”

“Tired.” ‘Kook’ shrugged into the coat he was handed, almost trodding on the other man’s heels as they exited the waiting room.

Stupid. You slumped forward, squeezing your eyes shut and rubbing your forehead. Get a grip.

He sat a few seats away. You kept your head down, not eager to embarrass yourself further.

You’d heard his voice before, but for the first time, you realized how melodious it was. “I didn’t look before I turned the page that day. I’m sorry.”

You looked up. “I know. I’m sorry too, for how I acted.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He relaxed into the seat. “I’m Seokjin, by the way.”

“I was calling you Magazine Man in my head. Just so you know.”

He had a nice laugh. “There are worse names, I suppose. What’s yours?”

“Exhausted panda.”

“Panda? Is that your favorite animal?”

You blinked, taken aback at his interest. “Uh, no. That's not why. It’s for the dark circles under my eyes...it’s hard for me to get enough sleep.”

“...I see wings.” His voice was hesitant. Gentle.

You couldn’t understand why he’d been trying to boost your morale. “Oh...well. My actual name is Y/N.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Y/N.”

The next time you saw Seokjin, he was worried when he learned you didn’t have an immediate ride home. Lisa had left on an urgent errand for her mother, and you hadn’t driven in the first place. It was kind of impossible to do that when you were incapacitated by pain and nausea.

He offered to drop you off after he took his brother home.

You couldn’t reply right away. You had some idea of who he was. You knew his name, and that he loved his brother dearly. But you didn’t know him well enough to feel completely comfortable.

But pain had always been your strongest motivator. The easiest fix for the agony snaking along your guts was a heating pad at home.

And here Seokjin was, with the tempting words that made you imagine how sweet the relief would be.

You said yes.

Seokjin stopped next to you while you were browsing through the earrings at the local Walmart, almost giving you a heart attack before you recognized him.

He was with his brothers. You hadn’t known that there were others, besides Jungkook. But then again, you had only met in the hospital.

Thankfully, Jungkook appeared to be fine. But you knew all too well that didn't necessarily mean he felt that way. Still, his smile almost rivaled Seokjin’s.

Seokjin gave the jewelry a cursory scan before he snatched a pair left over from Christmas, stamped with Santa Claus’ image. “These would be perfect for you.”

You rolled your eyes, swatting his hand away. “More like for you.”

He didn't laugh. You were surprised to see him scrutinizing your features. “You’re feeling better.”

“Yeah.” You swallowed. He didn’t intend to, but his words reminded you of the fact that every meeting up to that point had happened with you rendered helpless in one way or another. You despised the idea that people thought of you as frail, vulnerable...weak.

Especially Seokjin.

But it was undeniable. You were weaker than the average person. Good days where you could cope had been reduced, and there weren't many days at all that you didn’t feel some symptom.

Seokjin had a window to Jungkook’s experiences. But even then, there was a disconnect between them. What then, did you hope that he could do for you, that you couldn’t do for yourself?

“I found something for you.” He took your hand in his. Cool metal pressed into your skin.

You uncurled your fingers to see midnight blue stones glinting up at you, set as the leaves of an earring climber. “It’s beautiful.”

He sent you a wink. “Of course it is. What would you choose for me, Y/N?”

They stood out almost immediately. You retrieved the pair of silver chain drop earrings and deposited it in his hand. They were rather plain, save for the metal stars at the ends of both.

He rolled the fine metal links across his thumb.

You hadn’t spoken, but his head lifted. He refused to look away from your eyes. His own had softened, resulting in the tension rippling across your shoulders. You didn't like it when people looked at you like that.

Seokjin had never seen one of your days, only glimpses. He had no idea of what you endured.

He had no right to meet your gaze with that familiarity.

“Butterfly.” His voice was hushed, stopping you in your tracks.

“‘Butterfly’...?”

“Can I call you that?”

“I didn’t think we were on a nickname basis. If we were friends, I’d allow it.”

“Friends…” he mused. “That’s fair.”

The image of rain, threatening to break through a wall of clouds, rolled across your mind.

He didn’t relent, daring to reach out. He folded your fingers around the piece of paper. “If you need a ride. Or if you want to talk.”

“Do you just carry your number around?”

He glanced downwards. “I wrote it after I saw you here.”

You nodded stiffly. You couldn’t see yourself turning to him for further help, but you weren’t about to tell him that. Besides, there was no harm in keeping the paper, just for a while.

-----

He had lovely handwriting. You left his note on your desk after entering his contact, though you debated for several weeks on what to text.

If you decided to text at all.

Red lights cutting through the midnight darkness and echoes of his voice in the enclosed space lingered. The memory of his presence paired with the absence of pain.

You were unable to forget that you owed him, and you wouldn’t be able to let the memory fade until you’d done something in return.

He replied with an invitation to a homemade dinner. It didn’t make sense. Honestly, it was frustrating. You just wanted to pay him back and be done with it.

But again, he insisted. The little voice in your head whispered that it’d be easier to explain yourself in person, rather than over text.

While Seokjin had dug in right away, you set your fork down. “I have to be clear about this. I said yes because I owe you for the ride home before. There’s no other reason.”

He gazed at you from across the table. “I did that because I wanted to. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Seokjin, please.”

He sighed. “That’s what friends do. Can we be friends, Y/N? Not...whatever this is?”

You traced the rim of your glass, collecting condensation on your fingertip. “...I guess we can try.”

“Thank you.”

You glanced at him. His gentle smile and warm brown eyes caused an ache to bloom in your chest. Feeling your body temperature spike, you broke eye contact with him.

The clock on the wall read 6:32. The muted ticking of its hands and the clinking of silverware were the only noises in the room.

For a house with six other occupants, especially in the evening, you would’ve expected to overhear conversations and movement. “Where are your brothers?”

“Jungkook went to watch a movie with Jimin and Tae. Yoongi’s at his studio. Namjoon and Hoseok went back to campus to study.”

“Does that happen often? You getting the house to yourself?”

He smiled. “I may have...provided incentive to the youngest ones.”

You stumbled upon a new author and earned a couple more pieces of literature to proofread. Since you hadn’t gone to college, you were grateful each time you found a new client.

When Seokjin refused monetary payment, you came up with a plan B.

While you couldn't be exactly sure of what Jungkook’s trigger foods were, you were reasonably sure that they included the worst ones for you. Red sauce (and everything that entailed) was pure evil on the most basic list of what foods to avoid. You had no clue what his other brothers liked, so you packed a variety of food.

He answered on the second ring. “Y/N?”

“Hey, you’re at home, right? Is everyone else there too?”

“Just a sec. ...Yoongi’s on the way. Everyone’s here beside him. Why?”

“I bought food, so we can all have dinner together.”

“Alright. You’re at home?”

“Yeah.”

“Wait there. I’ll come get you.”

“I can drive, Seokjin. But thank you.”

“See you soon, butterfly. Drive safely.”

Seokjin swung the door open. Surprise flickered across his expression. “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you.” You lifted the basket, as if he hadn’t already seen it. “I brought food.” As if you hadn’t told him that earlier. You cringed, wondering why his compliment had thrown you off so badly.

If you were trying to distract him, it hadn’t worked. His thumb grazed your earlobe and the jewelry adorning it. “It matches you.”

Seokjin’s presence in your life was like the moon. You’d walked for so long through the night that at first, even his light had been blinding. But it hadn’t taken too long to become accustomed to his honest, kind nature.

A few months went by. Though Seokjin hadn’t exactly hesitated to talk to you before, sending you cute animal pictures or memes, he became thoughtful when you saw him in person.

“I feel like you’re hiding something from me.” You sat across the table from him. His brothers had already finished eating and scattered throughout the house and yard. You’d declined his invitation for food, but accepted for the company.

He finished chewing, his hand over his mouth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh yeah?” You looked - very deliberately - at his ears.

He bolted out of his seat. “Hey!”

You waited a long moment before rising. His hands pressed into your shoulders, holding you firmly in place. “Y/N, don’t turn around and I’ll talk.”

“Okay.”

“You’re special to me.”

“Special...in what way?”

“As my friend. As someone I like.” He claimed the chair next to you.

“Oh..”

“Can we give it a try? It doesn’t need to be official. I just want to know you better.”

“Seokjin, I haven’t been in a relationship for a long time. I’m not...suited for one.”

“If you don’t want to, that’s fine. But why do you think you’re not suitable?”

You drew patterns on the table. “Um, I’ve just never wanted another person there…”

His hand settled over yours. He squeezed your fingers. “Sure. But why, Y/N?”

Your throat grew tight. You choked out, “I didn’t want to be a burden.”

He drew you to him, tucking your head against his shoulder. You blinked tears away.

“You’ve had to be strong for so long.” He murmured, melancholy infusing his tone. “You’re not alone anymore, butterfly.”

------

It took a few hours to surface from the dark ocean.

You were in Seokjin’s room, watching him explore Hyrule. He had a Nintendo Switch hooked up to his TV, with a Breath of the Wild cartridge inserted. “Seokjin?”

“Hmm?” He frowned as he furiously mashed buttons. “Just a minute.” On the screen, Link was fighting a masked man in red. The enemy teleported around the battlefield, annoying Seokjin. “Stand still and let me kill you!”

He breathed a sigh of relief when his attacks connected. You kept an eye on the enemy’s HP bar, cheering inwardly each time it went down. After vanquishing the masked enemy, he set the Switch on his bedside table and turned his attention to you. “What is it, Y/N?”

“I’m ready to talk about why I’ve been afraid of relationships.”

He inclined his head, a silent ‘continue.’

“The fear of being a burden is constantly in the back of my mind, because of my health. I always thought...why would someone choose that? Why choose me, when so much of my life is this disease?”

“Because you’re a lovely person.”

“There are so many lovely people out there who are actually healthy.”

“But they’re not you.”

“I’m not any other person either, does that make them any less valuable?”

“No, of course not. That’s not-” He groaned. “Y/N, you’re making this impossible. Everyone is special. But you are in my life, and you’re important to me. I don’t give a damn about your health.”

You wanted to believe it.

If it had been anyone else, you wouldn’t have. Even so, doubts haunted you.

Seokjin was a good person to the core. You’d seen that when he took care of Jungkook, in his cooking for his brothers, and how he’d bolstered your spirits when it was all too much.

You could trust him.

But you didn’t want to drag him down. He deserved better.

He took your hand, thawing the ice in your bloodstream. “Look at me.”

You did. He intertwined his fingers with yours, his rings warm against your skin. “I know my own mind. And I like you. Your health doesn’t scare me.”

“It’s easy to say that.”

“If we were in a relationship, I could prove it. Remember Jungkook, too. I’ve seen his side of it.”

“..Okay. I’ll do my best.”

He chuckled softly. “You don’t need to do that. Butterfly, just be yourself.”

-----

Euphoria was unfamiliar. You poked at the dreamlike haze, searching for shadows. You relaxed when the sunlight faded. A full day had passed, and it hadn’t been a fantasy.

Grains of sand shifted under your shoes. Waves rolled against the shore, and he was at your side. “Jin, why did you start talking to me? In the hospital, I mean.”

“You looked sad. And I thought...maybe you could help Jungkook. He struggles with it a lot. If anyone can help, it’d be you, right?”

Moonlight spilled a silver path across the water. “I don’t know that I’d be able to help another person when I’m not in the best mindset. He should talk to a professional, I think.”

Jin parked next to the curb. You unbuckled the seat belt when he spoke, rushing through his words. “Y/N, there's something...I have to be honest. I didn’t ask you out purely for my sake. The next relationship I had, I wanted to meet someone similar to Jungkook.”

The euphoric bubble disintegrated. “What?”

“I’m sorry. But please believe me, I care about you.”

“Me or my disease?”

His face was veiled in shadow. “Y/N, it’s you.”

“I need time to think, Jin. You were using that part of me...and I just..”

---

His confession was a new experience. You’d struggled with self-esteem for years, only exacerbated by the crushing diagnosis. To fight with a resistant body and know that you would never, ever be freed from that for as long as you lived...it was hard.

There was always the hope of remission. But the risk of a flare-up was there too, in every period of peace.

Seokjin had deliberately sought you out because of your burden.

You knew that his intention was admirable and came from love for his brother. But the thought that not all of your interactions had been for the sake of, well, interacting...hurt.

A lot.

Were you not enough?

-------

Jungkook called after a few days, asking to talk in person. You agreed after he promised everyone else would be out of the house.

“How are you feeling?” You asked, looking him over. He didn’t appear pale, tired, or otherwise sick. What you were really concerned about were the possible symptoms you couldn't see.

“I’m okay. I managed to finish a painting.” His lopsided smile vanished. “I heard what happened.”

“Yeah...I assume you’re going to explain.”

“I’d like to. But I won’t if you don’t want to hear it.”

You couldn’t say no to his earnest request. “I’m listening.”

“He didn’t mean it like that. His exes were nice enough people, but they couldn’t understand how protective Jin-hyung and everyone else was of me. They wanted more from him than he was willing to give. He was just hoping that someone like me would be more sympathetic.”

You nodded slowly. “I can see that.”

Light glimmered in his eyes. “Can I pass on a message?”

“It’s alright, I’ll call him later. Jungkook, your brother said he was worried about you. Can I help you at all?”

He blinked at you, confusion clouding his face. “Help me..? On what?”

“Your health. If I can help, I mean. I only have my life to go off of, but I’ve been talking through it with a therapist.”

“Oh. Um...I want to ask you some questions.”

----

You dialed his number with shaking fingers.

“Y/N?” The concern in his voice made tears spring to your eyes.

“..yeah. It’s me. Um, listen, Jin. I talked to Jungkook earlier...and I thought a lot.” You opened the door, stepping onto the deck. When you tilted your head back, you could see the stars.

“Are you okay?”

“I will be. I just..needed to ask you something. It was real, right?”

“Yes, butterfly. I wouldn’t have gone this far if I didn’t care about you.”

“Okay.” You wiped at your eyes. “I still love you, Jin. Can we start over?”

“I’d like that.”

Your heart warmed when he blew you a kiss over the phone.

“Get some sleep, Y/N. I’ll text you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Good night, Jin.”

“What do you want to do in the future, Jin?”

“I’m supposed to take over the family business. After all, I got a degree for it.”

“Do you want that?” You asked, hearing wistfulness and regret entwined in his voice.

“I...no, not exactly. But I’m the eldest.” He nudged his plate of fried chicken.

“That doesn’t matter. What do you want to do, Jin?”

He dragged his plate closer to him, avoiding eye contact.

“You’re so good to everyone. What about yourself?”

“I’d like to work in a hospital...not a doctor, but maybe a nurse? I want to help people.”

“You can do that and still be there for your family.”

Although he didn’t look completely convinced, he resumed eating. You were glad for that, at least.

Lisa wasn’t home when Jin pulled in, so he parked behind your car. He caught a glimpse of a bike, sheltered safely under the deck. “Is that yours?”

You followed his finger. “Yeah. It’s been a while, though.”

“Why? The weather's nice.”

Resignation dyed your tone a muted gray. “I can’t walk up a flight of stairs without getting tired most of the time. I don’t have the stamina for biking.”

He was holding an extra helmet and standing next to a light blue bike. Your heart leaped when you noticed it was a two-seater bicycle.

Jin clasped the strap under your chin. He sat in front and kicked off.

You didn’t look at the scenery very much.

Jin was still seated when you clambered off his bike and removed your helmet. You attempted to do the same to his, but nervousness hampered your movements. He reached up and unclasped the strap. Carefully lifting his helmet, you set it on the ground.

You could swear he had a halo. He was cast in an azure glow.

Of course, you knew it was all in your mind. He couldn’t claim to be of angelic status any more than he could emit light. Physically, anyway.

You cradled his face in your hands and kissed him. “I want to spend more time with you today, doing something you like.”

His eyes lit up. He wheeled the bike back to his car. “How about playing some games?”

You laughed. “You bet.”

Jin was a master at Mario Kart. You tried to keep up with him (and Jungkook, who’d entered the living room before Jin started the game.)

But it was over for you when you looked over at Jin. It was too easy to get lost in his shining eyes and victorious laughter when he edged ahead in the race.

At the end of the round, you leaned against his shoulder. “‘M tired.”

He paused the game and plucked a pillow from the couch. “Lay down. I like to think I'm more comfy than the floor.”

You hugged the pillow to your chest, laying your head on his lap. You craned your neck to look up at him, smirking at the adorable tinge of red on his face and ears. The satisfaction transformed into a softer, rosy-hued emotion as you admired the intensity in his eyes.

Beautiful. He was in his element, playing a game he loved.

Your eyes fluttered shut. Even the grumbles of frustration when his cart fell behind didn’t tug you farther away from the realm of slumber.

The living room was gone, replaced by the dining room. Jin was standing in front of you. You were holding several forget-me-not flowers out to him. In his hands, the blue darkened to purple before fading into pink.

“What flower is that?”

He tucked it behind your ear. “It's saxifrage, butterfly.”

The stem was poking your cheek. You swiped at the sensation. It didn’t depart - if anything, the prodding intensified.

You blinked to see Jin, his index finger hovering above your face. Jungkook was splayed out on the couch behind him, fast asleep.

He broke into a grin. “You were out for an hour, sleepyhead.”

You stretched. “Well, I guess it’s time to go then.”

“Actually…” he pursed his lips. “If you want to, we could have dinner. I don’t really have time to make anything, but we could do takeout.”

You poked his cheek in retaliation, then swiped your thumb across his lips. They parted under your touch. “I’d love that.”

------------

Lisa landed a job as a journalist and moved out of the apartment.

Jin responded to the news with apprehension. “I don’t want you to be alone. You could try living with us.”

“That’s...I still have five months left on the lease. Besides, I can’t live with seven people, Jin, even if they’re your family. I need a separate bathroom.”

“Oh. Right.” He sighed over the phone.

“Did you hear back from the college yet?”

“Not yet. But I think I’ll be accepted...at least, I hope so.”

“They’d be crazy not to. You already have a good record with them.”

You could tell he was smiling. “Thanks, butterfly.”

“How’s Jungkook doing right now?”

Relief saturated his voice. “He got a good report from his doctor. They said he’s in remission.”

“That’s great! Tell him I said ‘Good job! Don’t overdo it.’”

He chuckled. “I will.”

The door to Jin’s house opened before you could even knock. He leaned against the doorframe, with his forearm bearing most of his weight and his ankles crossed.

And his outfit...You raised an eyebrow. He was stunning, but you didn’t understand why he’d donned a fitted black suit when you were just coming over to hang out. At least, you’d thought it was a casual invitation. Then again, he had mentioned that he’d kicked his brothers out for a few hours.

His ears were turning a condemning shade of red the longer you stared at him.

“Jin…? Did you have ulterior motives, perhaps?”

“...Maybe a few..?”

You took a step closer. “I don’t mind them, Jin. Not from you, not like this.”

“Oh…” A small tremor ran through him as you grasped his tie.

“Although you didn’t need to dress up. If you could see yourself...well, besides through a mirror. You’re breathtaking, Jin.”

“Ah...okay.” Jin looked down at himself, a seed of doubt flickering in his expression. As if you could possibly be talking about anyone else.

You laughed softly. “Come here, you ridiculous man.” Tugging on his tie, you connected lips. His tongue swiped along your bottom lip, asking for entrance that you eagerly granted.

Jin’s hands settled on the small of your back, pulling you flush against him. He lifted you into the air as you flung your arms around his neck. Your legs wrapped around his middle before he supported your thighs.

You nibbled on his pierced earlobe, blowing a soft breath out and watching the silver drop earring sway. His grip tightened on you.

“Jin?”

“Yeah?”

Glimmers of moonlight reflected in his eyes.

You have the most beautiful heart.

How was I lucky enough to have these moments with you?

“I’m really happy we met, you know.” As he entered his room, you nudged the door shut with your foot.

“Me too.” Everything about Jin seemed impossibly tender. His voice, his eyes, his smile. He lowered you onto the bed with the same amount of care.

You shimmied out of your jeans, using his shoulder for balance. Your shirt landed on the floor next as you knelt. You undid his belt and started sliding his dress pants down his toned thighs, palming his bulge as you went. Above you, Jin let out a quiet groan, his fingers momentarily frozen in their descent of his shirt buttons.

Heat pooled in your core as he took time to fold his clothes and hang them over the back of a chair. He was playing with you now, you were sure. There was no way he didn’t know how much you yearned for his touch.

When he was within reach, you tangled a hand in his hair and slotted your mouth against his.

His hands slid up your bare back, lingering at the bra band. The fabric pressed into your skin before falling.

Jin pulled away. The lunar glow of his irises had been swallowed by a starless night. “I want to see all of you.”

A shiver raced down your spine. Breathless, you let the garment drop to the floor, followed by your underwear.

“Sit back properly, Y/N.”

You didn’t look away from him as you scooted backwards, into a nest of pillows. He sank to his knees. “Can I go down on you, butterfly?”

Butterfly.

You trembled at that, how he could call you so innocently, yet resemble nothing but temptation. His pupils were blown out in lust, his honey skin gleaming with a light sheen of sweat, and his lips swollen with your kisses.

“Yes.” You managed. “But you still have boxers on.”

He smiled at that. “I’m taking care of you right now. Lay back and relax.”

A yelp escaped when he gripped your thighs, lifting your lower body in order to place a pillow there. He propped himself up on his elbows.

Jin’s hair was silky, brushing against your skin as he pressed a kiss to your inner thigh. His thumb glided along your folds, paying attention to your clit. His tongue circled the bundle of nerves, switching between broad swipes and targeted licks.

Your body jolted when he inserted a finger past your entrance, curling it inside you. He lapped up the juices, his gaze flicking to yours.

A fresh wave of arousal hit you.

The casual way Jin had held you captive with just a look...he’d taken root in your life, to the point that you’d suffer without him. You’d recover, eventually.

You always did.

But not at full health. Your body couldn’t even remember what that was like, and your mind struggled to process the distance between who you were ‘before,’ and who you were ‘after.’

“Butterfly?” Jin called you back. He’d sat up.

You blinked. “Yeah?”

“You looked...sad.”

You rested your forehead against his. “It’s not much. I’m just grateful to have you in my life.”

His hands cupped your face. Searching your eyes, he asked, “Do you still want to continue?”

He saw the confirmation as you spoke, “Yes.”

Jin removed his boxers, tossing them on the floor. He positioned his cock at your folds and eased into you, watching your reactions. You bit your lip at the beginning of each movement, and let out a little sigh as pleasure overwhelmed any fading discomfort.

When he bottomed out, Jin touched your cheek. “Can I move, baby?” At your nod, he rolled his hips, delivering controlled, powerful strokes.

“Perfect for me.” He rasped. “My beautiful butterfly.” Jin intertwined his fingers with yours, gazing down at you. Locks of hair curled against his forehead, his earrings catching light with every thrust.

You dragged your nails across his back. His shoulders were incredibly broad, tapering to his more delicate waist. Despite all the power he possessed, he was one of the most gentle people you knew.

He bent his head. You felt a slight sting above your collarbone, but he soothed the love bite with his tongue. He latched onto a breast, teasing the sensitive bud and stoking the fire in your core. It raced along your nerves, leaving them alight and craving more.

Perhaps Jin was the best (non-medicinal) cure for you.

You traced his jaw, lightly hooking a finger under his chin and urging him further over you. You nosed at the hollow of his throat, and a moan tumbled from his lips. When you nipped at his skin and laved the mark, his hips stuttered.

“Y/N,” his voice had deepened, “I don’t wanna hold back anymore.”

You looked into his eyes. “Then don’t.”

“On your knees.” Ji-...Seokjin growled.

You scrambled to obey. His palms pressed into your shoulder blades, guiding your hands flat against the bed. You melted inside at the dual caress on either side of your spine, and swallowed a whimper when his hands became rough, kneading your ass.

“Let me hear your pretty voice.” He sank into your warmth.

Seokjin set a brutal pace, pounding into you. His panting, the slap of skin against skin, and your ragged breathing intermingled. You were hurtling towards the edge of release, but a wave of bone-deep weariness was licking at your heels.

His rhythm slowed. You had time to wonder if Seokjin or Jin was in charge, before his hand pushed your legs apart. He rubbed circles on your clit, varying the pressure of his touch.

You were falling apart under Seokjin’s skilled fingers, but the oncoming orgasm sapped your strength. Your arms shook, threatening to give out. Unable to fight the fatigue creeping in around your joints and limbs any longer, you gasped, “I can’t..Jin, I’m exhausted.”

He pulled out. In equal, warring measure, your body ached for rest and to have him inside you again.

You curled into a ball, listening to his steps fade. He was back within a minute, his touch and voice soft when he placed a hand on your shoulder. “Y/N?”

You made a muffled noise, hidden by the pillow. His weight sank into the bed. You lifted your head reluctantly when he stayed silent. “Jin...I'm so sorry.”

He shook his head. “You did your best, baby.”

Your lip quivered as you cast your gaze down. “-...do better for you.”

“I know.” He started to dab at your neck with a damp cloth. “You’re more important, Y/N. There are other ways to get off.”

You sat up slowly. Jin’s hand moved to your shoulder.

A strangled noise left your throat when you glanced downwards. You should’ve known, since he hadn’t climaxed earlier.

Actually seeing his erection made it sink in.

“How can I help you?”

“You don’t need to do anything.”

You were begging now, tears welling in your eyes. “Jin, baby, please. Let me help you.”

He wrenched his gaze away from your pleading, heartsick expression. “I’m sorry.”

You threw the duvet over your head, but it didn’t dampen the sound of running water in the next room.

He was taking a shower.

The tears overflowed.

You wanted to be his equal. He’d focused so much on your own pleasure, forgoing his own.

The shower stopped not long after. You burrowed closer to the wall, bunching the duvet in your fists to hold it down.

His steady footsteps halted at the edge of the bed. “Can you let me in, butterfly?”

Your resolve wavered, and you released the fabric. Cool air brushed against your back as you heard him get into bed. The duvet fell again, covering you up to the shoulder.

Jin embraced you from behind. His palm radiated warmth against your stomach, and he hooked his leg over yours.

You tried to wriggle out of his arms. “How can you want to touch me now?”

His voice was unsteady. “Because you’re my miracle, Y/N.”

“But I didn’t...you wouldn’t….I didn’t help you.”

“I didn’t want you to because you’re exhausted, butterfly. When you feel up to it, you can.”

You clamped a hand over your mouth, trying to stifle your sobs.

“Shh, baby. It’s okay.” Jin whispered into your ear. He didn’t loosen his hold, and you placed your other hand on his forearm.

Not to push him away, but to reassure him you understood. That you were grateful...for everything. And that you’d try your hardest to have him finish with you.

He listened to your breathing even out and felt your body go lax as sleep claimed you. A small twinge of regret flashed through him when he remembered the letter he’d received.

He’d tell you later, he decided. You needed rest, not excitement (even if you had been awake.)

----

“This is amazing, Jin!” You were beaming by the time you reached the end of his letter. “When does the program start?”

“September 5th.” He was smiling too, his dream glowing in his eyes.

Pride fluttered in your chest. “You’ll be great, baby. Wait-” A slight frown marred your forehead. “Is that why you had a suit on before? To celebrate?”

“Well...yes. It was the first reason, anyway.”

You covered your face with your hands. “Oh god. I just assumed...fuck. I’m sorry, Jin.”

He almost laughed, but guessed that would not have been the kindest reaction. “No, there was that too. I posed in the doorway like that to seduce you.”

You snorted, but it was betrayed by the warm curve of your lips. “Of course.”

------------------

His reason for wanting to be a nurse was simple. Two of the most important people in his life depended heavily on the hospital and its staff. He knew how important it was to have well-functioning hospitals, not just for you and Jungkook, but for everyone.

You were just happy to see him working towards his dream. You had no doubt that he'd be able to play a part in other people’s lives.

Jin had a healing presence, after all.

#jin x reader #seokjin x reader #bts seokjin x reader #seokjin smut #bts jin #jin angst #jin fluff #seokjin angst #seokjin fluff

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vintagegeekculture · 4 years

Text

Who are the “Venoms Mob?”

Well, first things first: if you go to China and talk about the 5 Venoms, or the Venoms Mob, they’ll have absolutely no idea who you’re talking about there, because that’s a fandom-term among US Kung Fu cult movie fans.

In Hong Kong, the Venoms are known as director Chang Cheh’s Weapons Expert Troupe, a group of five lifelong friends, martial artists, bodybuilders, exotic weapons experts, and trained acrobats who did at least a dozen movies for manly man Kung Fu director Chang Cheh in the 1970s and 1980s. They were the real deal: they usually choreographed their own fight scenes, which often involved flips and crazy stunts due to their acrobat training, high-wire acts, and unusual and exotic weaponry not typically seen even in martial arts movies. It’s like every single one of them drank the Captain America potion. Their films tended to end in heroic sacrifices, and the Venoms, for all their athleticism and daring, tended to be identifiable people on the bottom end of the societal ladder: homeless drifters, refugees, itinerant hobos, traveling performers, or restaurant workers.

The Venoms were stars in the US, particularly among the black community who love Chinese martial arts movies, not just because of their truly breathtaking skill and choreography, but because they are how most people feel they are, secretly, deep down: rams among sheep. They are the poor, downtrodden, or average person who decides “not to take it anymore” after untold indignities. This is also why the Venoms are especially important to the black community. In fact, if you want to know how much the Venoms mean to their fans, just go up to nearly any Black Dad over 45+ and ask about the “5 Venoms.”

Chang Cheh, Director of the Venoms

The best way to describe the director and writer of the Venoms films, Chang Cheh is that he is basically Mac from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia if he decided to make Gladiator and loved Sergio Leone and Kurasawa.

The director and writer of the Venoms movies, and maybe the most significant name in the history of Kung Fu cinema apart from Bruce Lee, Chang Cheh was towering enough that Quentin Tarantino dedicated Kill Bill Part 2 to Chang Cheh in the closing credits. It would not be inaccurate to say he invented the Kung Fu movie as we know it, with its training montages, mentor-student relationships, all cut with themes of vengeance, noble self-sacrifice, and rebellion of poor and ordinary people against unjust authority.

Chang Cheh’s life story is fascinating. His father was a warlord during the Republican Era between the World Wars, which must have made for an interesting school career day. He started as a film critic and became a screenwriter, then from being a screenwriter, became a director. I wonder if that is the reason that Chang Cheh was so fascinated by themes of masculinity and male bonding, as the arty, openly gay movie critic son of a central Asian warlord had a nearly impossible standard of masculinity to live up to.

The two Western movies that are, thematically, the closest to Chang Cheh are Gladiator and Saving Private Ryan, and if you like both of those movies, you’ll probably like him. His heroes are often James Dean-like angry young men, poor and at the outskirts of society. His movies tend to end in heroic self-sacrifice for a noble cause, and tend to have themes of vengeance, arty blood red slaughter, and a distrust of authority and government of any kind. He loves bloodshed and thinks violence is beautiful; an image that comes up often is someone in an all white outfit that gets covered in blood, an arty view of violence similar to his two biggest influences, Sergio Leone and Kurosawa. Like the Shawshank Redemption, Chang Cheh movies are essentially ensemble pieces about the friendships and close comradely bonds of brotherhood between men. Very few women of any kind have extensive speaking parts in his movies.

Another movie that also summarizes Chang Cheh would be 300. Remember that Sarah Silverman bit where she said that “300 is the answer to the question, how gay is this movie on a scale of 1 to 10?” Not just because it is about an entirely male cast, or about finding fulfillment in noble self-sacrifice and heroism Alamo-style against desperate odds, but also because it’s about glorifying the male body, with tons of abs and pecs. I suppose I should mention here that Chang Cheh’s movies are profoundly homoerotic, and discussion of their homoeroticism is the major way film academics talk about these movies. How many scenes in Cheh’s movies are about dudes hanging out with their shirts off, flexing their muscles? Or about “brothers” who clasp each other on the shoulder while looking longingly into each other’s eyes in a shot-reverse shot? The only meaningful relationship in his movies are male ones. I dislike passing on cheap gossip, but by all accounts it’s actually an open secret in the Hong Kong film industry that Chang Cheh was homosexual and lived with other men.

Yi Kuang -Screenwriter of the Venoms

The screenwriter of nearly all the Venoms movies, much like Chang Cheh, Yi Kuang had an interesting life. He was a Communist Party officer who went to Inner Mongolia, where his primary job was writing death sentences for landlords. Once idealistic, he left disillusioned with the Chinese Communist Party, and a remained a die-hard anticommunist. Evil bureaucrats tend to show up in his stories often for that reason, and a common theme of his scripts is the anger of ordinary people against distant, unapproachable authorities. There’s no understanding Venoms films without their screenwriter. Chang Cheh started as a screenwriter and wrote his movies, but Yi Kuang was his most frequent partner.

Interestingly, Yi Kuang got famous long after for writing a series of supernatural and horror novels called the Mr. Wisely books, where a traditional Chinese medicine expert fights for sites of power charged with Feng Shui. It’s interesting to see his turn to the supernatural, sorcery, and ghosts as an overreaction to his distaste for Marxist materialism. Of all the Venoms films, the one that shows his influence the strongest was the one the Venoms fight an evil human sacrifice devil cult, Masked Avengers.

The Hero – Kuo Chui

A guy with a big smile and a body carved out of marble, Kuo Chui started as a circus acrobat before becoming a stuntman and then a leading actor. He was the Venom with the strongest and most natural screen presence, the one that was the most “movie star.” In fact, he was almost always the hero and central character of Venoms movies, usually playing the most levelheaded and strategic minded of the group.

Kuo Chui deserves some credit also for being the one Venom to actually direct a movie himself, Ninja in the Deadly Trap. This sounds like a heck of a leap, but in Hong Kong, nearly all choreographers also direct their fight scenes. It’s no surprise that a common career path in Hong Kong cinema is to go from choreographer to director (see also Chang Cheh’s ex-choreographers, Tang Chia and 36 Chambers director Liu Chia Liang)

The Bad Guy – Lu Feng

Every single movie, Lu Feng was the heel, the bad guy. I mean, heck, in Shaolin Rescuers, he even played the evil apprentice of the supreme supervillain of the martial arts, Pai Mei! But no matter what, Lu Feng was just so cool that you couldn’t help but root for him just a little bit. He was a character type common in pro wrestling: the arrogant “cool heel,” like Rick Flair and the Horsemen.

The Venoms tended to be workaday regular poor guys, but Lu Feng usually played a rich guy who oozed arrogance and menace, rather like the evil rich football player heel in college movies.

The Funny Guy – Chiang Sheng

A guy who usually played the funny young hero or a wisecracking comedy sidekick prone to wiseassery and pratfalls, Chiang Peng was the Venom who most benefited from the rise of Jackie Chan, and his introduction of silent film era inspired physical comedy into the otherwise stale Kung Fu film. Like Robin Williams, Chiang Shiang was someone who made everyone else laugh, but because he had a lot of darkness inside him, which ended up killing him. Chiang Sheng is the only Venom to not be with us, he drank himself to death after his divorce in 1991. Because of this, there can never really be a full Venoms reunion.

One of the most amazing things about Hong Kong cinema in the 70s is that the actors tended to have scraggly teeth that aren’t perfect and that seemed to be Chang Shieng’s defining trait. To be clear, I am not in any way mocking him for having bad teeth. In fact, I think it is rather winsome and endearing, like a teenager with braces.

The Tough Guy – Lo Meng

Known as the “Shaolin Hercules,” the person I’d compare Lo Meng to is Mr. Worf. Ultra-strong, humorless, intimidating, dead serious and never smiling, he was by far the most muscular and powerful of the Venoms, with tons of machismo and swagger, “big dick energy” as the kids say today. The camera tends to linger on his oiled up biceps and chest in extreme close-up…but was also, usually, the first to die in nearly all of these films. Much like how Worf was the toughest guy ever, but usually got beat up a lot so the writers could show that the situation was serious. In fact, Lo Meng, still in great shape, was in Ip Man 4, where, not one to break with a tradition, he was the first guy to get his ass beat in the film, even in a movie made in the Year of Our Lord 2020.

Lo Meng tends to be the “backup main hero” and was even the main character in films like 2 Champions of Shaolin. He had the most impressive “solo” film career apart from the other Venoms. Like Geri Halliwell, he left the Venoms to do his own thing, which is why the defining trait of the later Venom films is that he wasn’t there.

Lo Meng wasn’t Taiwanese like the other Venoms, and was a native of Hong Kong. In fact, he got his start in the film industry not as a stuntman or muscleman, but as an accountant for the Shaw Brothers studios, and he lifted weights and did Praying Mantis Kung Fu as a hobby. That’s…that’s hilarious. Reminds me of that fake Simpsons movie, Undercover Nerd with Renier Wolfcastle:

The Wild Card – Chun Shieng

Would YOU trust this man? I wouldn’t. He betrayed the Toad!

That’s Chun Shieng for you, the wild card Venom who could “go either way” and so wasn’t an entirely trustworthy ally.

Allow me to correct a misconception I’ve seen in a lot of places: Chun is sometimes known as “the one Korean Venom.” He isn’t Korean but Chinese, but he was trained in Korea and is a Tae Kwon Do expert, unlike the other Venoms, who studied Chinese Kung Fu and Peking Opera. And it certainly shows: he always fights with a kick-heavy Tae Kwon Do style that does not look much like any Kung Fu at all.

#kung fu #martial arts #shaw brothers #70s #5 venoms

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the-second-tonks · 3 years

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Hiiii my friend! There’s a Maze Runner game right? All of your games are so cool that I just have to request this one now that I’m part of the fandom haha 😂❤️

I’m a straight female, with curly brown hair and green and blue eyes. I’m about 5’6. The people closest to me say I’m Brave, funny, friendly, stubborn, overprotective, and tough. I’m usually the one in my circle who stands up for what’s right, I have a hard time being a bystander. Sarcasm is my way of showing love sometimes 😂

If it matters, I’m a Gryffindor, ENFP, Aquarius. My faction is Candor, and I’m a Thunderbird.

One of my pet peeves is when someone calls another person a scaredy-cat. Especially when said person does something anyway, because bravery isn’t the absence of fear, it’s doing something DESPITE the fear. I also dislike people who brag about hurting others.

My hobbies include reading, writing, daydreaming, occasional archery, being in nature, watching my favorite shows/ movies and listening to music.

My favorite color is red, and my favorite animal is a lion. My favorite movies/books are Narnia/LOTR. My favorite weather is rain. My favorite smells are Lilac, a forest after it’s rained, vanilla extract, or a house after you’ve baked something.

Some more random things about me: I like chocolate, birds, dramatic music, battle scenes in movies where the good guy comes to the rescue, music that gives me chills, the energy in a room when people are being inspired, horseback riding, swords, dresses, and flowers. I’ve been told I have a powerful presence in a room, just by the way I carry myself. I struggle with maladaptive daydreaming, and anxiety. I would rather be super cold than super hot. People closest to me say I would be a good ER nurse.

I hope I did this right, have an amazing day!! 💜

Hihihihihi !!! I was so excited to write for you and this fandom !!!! Sooo .. we had a talk and you said you'd love to have the characters that I'm gonna list ! And no these are not too many to ask !!! People have gone till the maximum limit (15) hahah. Also , I have repeated about newt and Thomas since I wrote for them earlier I'm sorry🥲

Eva , Thomas , Minho , newt , gally , frypan , Teresa , Brenda , Jorge , Janson and Aris .

Here ya go friend😏

Chancellor Eva Paige

Her thoughts about you

Oh she considers you one of their best. She has a greater hope on you , that you'll make her and WCKED (insert ' I ' if you're a book reader) proud . She would definitely send you in Group B to lead them out of the Maze (ofcourse that's just what I think hehe) even though group B has Rachel and Aris .

Your relationship

Umm..not necessary? But she's a mentor to you , she's been taking care of you since you left your parents for WCKED . She's been a mother figure to you .

First impressions

When she first met you when you were taken away , even though you were afraid , scared of the people , you stood your ground .. that's when she smiled and put her hopes on you . She knew you're one of the best out here.

Assistant Director Janson

I'd love to call him Rat Man

His thoughts about you

He constantly reminds Eva that you're Thomas' supporters .. and one of the strongest contenders that WCKED could face . He kinda hates you because you're not supporting them and is constantly doubting/suspecting your every move (I mean , when you all escape the maze and are unknown of the fact you're being taken to the second phase of the trials) .

Your relationship

You disrespect Janson .. that's it for me hehe . But before the maze , I feel like he'll be a teacher who's strict . You also wrote him a letter everyday , just a fun activity which proves you loved him as your teacher before the Maze .

First impressions

From the first time when you joined WCKED and helped Newt meet his sister , Sonya (it's in the books hehe), he knew there will be a time when you'll go against WCKD .

Aris Jones

His thoughts about you

He trusts you a lot . He thinks you're just like Thomas , their light and hope. You'll be brave despite your fear , which will often inspire him to stand up against . He's your loyal supporter and would jump into the worst risks with you . Before the maze , you both were very close , he know about you likeness for chocolates and so he gave you one everyday !.

Your relationship

Friends , but trust on each other is superb .

First impressions

Okay but as soon as he saw you , he knew you're a blessing in disguise . He knew you'll do something great and help people escape. Really.

Thomas

His thoughts about you

You're really a support system to him .. if he has no one for backup , he can expect you always .. he relies on you a lot more than he does on any other girl . He had a crush on you due to your strong and powerful personality . But , he respects you and your boundaries and the fact that you like Minho .. if you still wanna work on this , you can . But he absolutely thinks of you as a sweet girl who can kill , the thing that attracts him a lot towards you . He actually thinks you both had a connection before the maze because you both played a similar role (that is getting people out of maze) in your respective mazes.

Your relationship

Complicated

First impressions

He kinda tripped on air when you took stand for him against Janson ... So.. yeah he fell for you .. kinda .hehe .

Newt

His thoughts about you

He loves you as a sister really . He can always count on you physically , mentally and most importantly , emotionally . He loves you a lot and would do anything to protect you . He always wishes to have you by his side and the fact that he expects you to save him in the death cure(and maybe you do save him?!) . He trusts you with his life and won't hesitate to give his life for your safety .. he feels as if you both had a connection before the Maze . Just as he said for Thomas , he'd follow you anywhere .. from the day he saw you taking stand for Thomas .

Your relationship

You're like a sister to him .

First impressions

He was thoroughly impressed by you and your bravery . You gave him a simple sense of comfort and support , so yeah , he was super loyal to you . Oh did I miss your powerful presence impacted him a lot ?

Minho

His thoughts about you

Lol since I've shipped you with him already , I'll just say he loves you ! And whenever you take stand for anyone , he'll smirk and say "that's my girl". Hehe . He really trusts you a lot and secretly is kinda depended on you.

Your relationship

In a relationship/married .

First impressions

All he could do was flap is mouth open and close . Super impressed by your bravery , his eyebrows were touching his hairline .. so yeah .. that was a shock to Minho for sometime hehe.

Frypan

His thoughts about you

He thinks of you as the most badass , but the most protective girl of their group . Infact , you're the only girl he was most impressed with . He considers you a great friend . Frypan is actually the one who'll give you immense support .

Your relationship

Good friends

First impressions

He thought of you quite differently as compared to other girls . He thought of you as a strong and tough girl who knows a thorough difference between the right and the wrong.

Brenda

Her thoughts about you

To her you both are super similar and she kinda doubted you in the beginning , but now , her trust is unbreakable ! She trusts you with her deepest and darkest sides , she trusts you with her life and even Thomas and Jorge's life .

Your relationship

Bestfriend

First impressions

She kinda was jealous because she liked Thomas and Thomas gave extra attention to you lol .

Jorge

His thoughts about you

Oh this man counts on you a lot . He respects you completely and congratulations , you've earned Jorge's support and trust . He'll do anything and everything for you , even if it's dying .

Your relationship

He's kinda a friend to you .

First impressions

He was skeptical in the beginning , but he warmed up eventually.

Gally

His thoughts about you

Before the maze , you were his real sister . He instantly hit off with you ! And you both were super duper protective of everyone . Minho was kinda mean to you and so was the complete group , but something in your heart told you to stand with gally.... And just him lol trust me you and Minho were almost over .

Your relationship

You both settled as good friends since you didn't remember you were brother and sister.

First impressions

Honestly speaking , there were no first impressions .. it was simply you and you for him .

Teresa Agnes

Her thoughts about you

She is completely fine with you and she actually finds you strong and tough. She's kinda proud of you . She adores you too though .

Your relationship

It was love hate haha .

First impressions

Oh oh oh , she was kinda ... Jealous *me staring at Thomas with duh eyes* , but she thought of you as a smart and brave girl who led a group out of the maze , which isn't easy ofcourse . She felt that powerful presence you had .

I hope you liked it !!!

#j🌟#maze runner series #newt maze runner #minho maze runner #thomas x you #thomas x y/n #tmr brenda #tmr gally #tmr newt #tmr fandom #tmr thomas #tani plays games #game for you all

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spirantization · 2 years

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so i saw spider-youth because i live in a small town whose cinema gets like 20 people per screening max eyyyy

the spoiler-free version is that i loved it, lots of fun, would recommend if it's safe to see where you are, and i was quite happy that it was my first theatre-going experience in 2+ years.

spoiler thoughts under the cut:

are we absolutely sure that was a real movie and not a collective fever-dream

it's not even that it was the worst-kept secret because i don't think anything actually leaked, it's just that every single person who watched the trailer immediately said "lmfao yeah tobey and andrew are gonna be in it"

AND THEN THEY WERE

i loved it. A+. 10/10. 5 stars.

i was a teenager during tobey mcguire's era as spider-man and remember seeing them in them all in theatres (especially 3, in which there is a scene where spider-man jumps and lands in front of an american flag and the entire audience burst out laughing). informative media tbh. seeing tobey back as older, wiser, youth pastor spider-man was *chef's kiss*

and i ALSO love andrew garfield's awkward stalker ragey spider-man, and he was beautiful here. he got his 3rd spider-man movie. he got closure for gwen's death. he got to put a lab coat on over his spidey suit to show he is the Smartest. the amazing spider-man was amazing.

genuinely surprised with how much screen time they got. i thought it would be a cameo for each of them, that they'd show up for the fight at the end and a brief little heart to heart. i was not expecting, but was delighted to receive, them being major fixtures in half the runtime.

oh yeah and the matt murdock cameo was fun too. honestly i'm shocked he still has a law practice

andrew spider-man catching mj, and then almost bursting into tears, was the greatest emotional beat of the movie. he couldn't save gwen but he saved mj. baby's first parallels. i want to reblog 500 gifsets of that scene.

i actually thought for a second they were going to kill off tobey spidey and i was prepared to be so sad. but then my man was like "oh don't worry lol i've been stabbed before nbd"

plot what plot. no one cares about the plot. we are strictly about the spider-men being brothers in this house

okay one plot thing: so all the villains were grabbed from their universes mere moments before their death... and then got cured in this universe... and then got sent back exactly where they came from... to immediately die... it's a little dark guys

i'm sorry peter parker is contractually obligated to lose one (1) parental figure on screen per trilogy

i think the ending was the strongest thing they could have done for spider-man at this point in time. i love tom holland as peter parker, but one of my biggest complaints about this iteration was that they were making him iron man 2.0. he had the fancy suits and the tech and the backing of the avengers, and it all felt really wrong. spider-man isn't about having nanotechnology, it's about a friendly neighbourhood spider-man who makes a suit in his bedroom and goes out to fight crime because he has a responsibility to help people. returning peter parker to those roots was 100% the smartest thing they could have done. sorry nobody knows who you are anymore peter, but narratively it was your best option. i don't know whether tom holland will come back as spider-man in some form, but if he does, this feels more like where he's supposed to be.

plus dr. strange can cast another spell to make people remember peter in about 5 minutes if they want him back. the stakes don't carry over from movie to movie. they're made up.

this movie is probably going to make 500 billion dollars and i'm not surprised. how often can you take three actors from three different spider-man trilogies, all made within the last twenty years, put them in one movie, validate all of them and tell everybody everything is completely canon? they captured lightning in a bottle with this one.

#spider-man #no way home #no way home spoilers #spider-man spoilers

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wizardysseus · 3 years

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i was thinking about once upon a time (abc) in bed this morning so i decided to write this list

subject to change, since awhile ago i was in the middle of season 6 when they took it off netflix and i never quite got around to picking it back up. i’m gonna finish if it kills me i promise

top 5 things about once upon a time

5. anna frozen

when ouat introduced frozen characters, most fans decided the show had jumped the shark. they were not wrong. however, it was this very thing that allowed the show to be fun again! after an excruciatingly bad season 3 (we will get to that), bringing on anna and elsa literally transported directly from their own unaltered story in cheap ass versions of their unaltered movie costumes allowed the show to let loose and do... basically whatever it wanted. this became the hallmark of the show for those who stuck with it: absolutely not making sense at all, but being fun about it. post-season-three ouat becomes a totally different soap opera from season one, but by god you are never bored.*

personally, the flashback episode where anna annoys rumpelstiltskin and gets the better of him and he’s so fucking mad about it is like top 10 episodes**

4. 2x16 “the miller’s daughter”

this episode is just another personal favorite. it exemplifies what this show was really good at when it was good, and also where everything went wrong. i think cora is a great example of a good ouat villain, i think the twist on the rumpelstiltskin story is great, i think the dramatic beats really work.

...and in typical ouat fashion, cora immediately dies and two more villains we don’t care about at all are introduced. (sonequa forgive me you know i’m in love with you but tamara was nothing. it’s not your fault.) yes we get that great scene of snow aggressively doing archery practice while listening to “bad reputation” but was it worth killing off a compelling villain just as you’d dug into her story?

3. the commitment to regina’s redemption

and lana parrilla in general. i mean i’m gay and she’s hot but the worse the show got, the more acting lana gave it. and this is just speculation, but i think lana is more comfortable with drama than with camp? because regina becomes a much more interesting character as someone conflicted and on the path to redemption than as a villain. and by god, they were gonna redeem regina.

if only she had been gay we really could have had it all.

2. rumpelstiltskin

the sweet spot with rumpelstiltskin for me was seasons one and two when he was unabashedly bastard, there was an attempt to make him sympathetic but nobody except belle actually liked him, you weren’t quite sure how much he knew, he was pulling all the strings, and he was just really fucking weird. it will surprise no one who follows this blog to hear that that is my type of wizard.

1. season one

it’s a good season. it’s a good season. there are some bad things about it, but it was extremely watchable. it was doing fairy tales with occasional disney nods in a (mostly) cohesive fashion. the lore and the magic hadn’t sprawled out of control yet. it had the strongest relationship, imo, between emma and henry, and emma and snow. as for iconic episodes, most of the greats are here, plus sebastian stan as the mad hatter and giancarlo esposito as a series regular. the crowning moment for me is the scene at the end of skin deep, when regina confronts gold in the town jail and he reveals that he remembers his real name (after beating the shit out of belle’s dad with his cane obviously). god. that is some good television.

worst 5 things about once upon a time

5. the adoption politics but everyone knows this one.

4. WASTING the talent

you had the love of my life sonequa martin-green and gave her nothing. you somehow scored oded fehr as jafar and gave him nothing. you had giancarlo esposito and regina literally forgot he existed. i will kill you

3. rumpelstiltskin.

it’s no secret that robert carlyle was acting circles around most of the cast; my opinion is that the showrunners felt that if they committed to either his redemption or his villainy, they would never find someone else with the talent to fill his shoes as bastard wizard. so they flip-flopped on him every half-season, which ruins his story longterm, slowly kills the light in robert’s eyes, and gets reallllllly old. it’s also no secret that my favorite rumpelstiltskin is bastard wizard, but they screwed over belle BIG time in the process and for that i will never forgive them.

also like. the rumpelstiltskin fairy tale is antisemitic to begin with and they did not minimize that by comparing him to a lizard and naming his storybrooke counterpart mr gold. they just. did that.

2. THE FUCKING NEVERLAND ARC GOD IN CHRIIIIIIIIIIIST THAT HALF-SEASON IS EXCRUCIATING

1. captain hook

*it’s my opinion that if you are bored, you’re watching a hook-centric episode. every time i dropped the show and forgot about it for months at a time, it was because i had been in the middle of an episode about hook and just could not get through it. how do i describe all the things i don’t like about what killian hook jones did to the show? with subpoints!

1a. the episode where gold gives him back his hand and he never changes.

**this is actually the same episode i mentioned about anna and, like i said, it’s one of my favorites and not at all boring. look, i’m not pretending this list isn’t subjective as hell.

remember when hook blackmailed mr gold into magically reattaching his hand, which gold has been keeping in a jar, because hook has a date with emma and wants it to go well? but also, gold tells him that if he reattaches his hand with dark magic, it will turn him evil? and then hook spends the episode doing evil things, only for mr gold to tell him “i was just messing with you! the hand was not evil, you gave yourself permission to be evil ;)”

yeah, that’s basically hook’s mo.

1b. episode where emma tells him his brother is lying to him and he learns the exact wrong lesson from this and never changes.

so emma goes to the underworld to get hook back after he dies (while being evil and doing villainous things). they find his brother down there, too, and emma senses that he has a dark secret (because he does) and is lying to them (because he is). but hook always idolized his older brother, so he won't believe her. when emma confronts the brother directly, hook interrupts to rant to her about how he knows what this is ~really all about.

actual dialogue:

HOOK: i don't need proof to know what's really going on here. emma, when are you gonna admit that this isn't really about my brother? EMMA: what else would you think it was about? HOOK: us. you think if you can prove that liam is a villain, then i’ll somehow feel like i was less of one.

who... would EVER come to that conclusion. and why is the lesson he learns at the end “perhaps i do deserve saving after all” (another direct quote), and not “NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT YOU, BECAUSE EMMA WAS LITERALLY RIGHT ABOUT YOUR BROTHER LYING TO EVERYONE”????

1c. the emma dark one arc, where hook never changes.

this would be the arc that leads up to the above underworld arc, and it is deeply dumb, entertaining, and hard to explain. suffice it to say, during this whole arc, killian (along with emma) has all the powers and ~~~Darkness~~~ of the dark one (formerly rumpelstiltskin). unlike emma, he is not aware of this for most of the season. the moment he finally finds out, he turns on emma and goes through with all the revenge plans he’s apparently been holding onto since season two.

it’s supposed to be sympathetic, because emma made this choice for him to be a dark one, which is clearly awful, when he didn’t want it. so i get that. but on the other hand, it is..... boring. because (a) it's nothing we haven't seen him try to do and fail at before, his motivations really aren't that complex. and more importantly, (b) he was the dark one the whole time! the only thing that changed, that made him act evil, was finding out about it. at that point, it's not the ~~~Darkness~~~ making you do evil things. it’s just you. because you’re a dick.

how is this arc resolved? well, he dies. after the underworld arc (which i very much enjoyed tbf), a sizable part of robin hood’s death episode is devoted to people telling emma to slow down and grieve for killian, since at least two arcs have revolved around her inability to let hook go when he is literally dying or dead. (it’s been said a million times but being his girlfriend really sucked the personality out of emma and i miss her.) and in the end he just... comes back anyway. no explanation given; he says it must be a reward from zeus for killing hades... while he and emma make out literally in front of the coffin of robin hood... who actually died fighting hades. killian died half a season before. while he was evil. and emma reverts to tearful girlfriend.

it’s insulting. it’s grating. and it is a Killian Hook Jones Guarantee that his episodes will involve some measure of this.

like, is it more or less the same shtick that the writers kept giving rumpelstiltskin, too? backsliding and screwing over his love interest who gets less and less say in the matter? yes. definitely. the crucial difference is that i, personally, love rumpelstiltskin, while i find hook boring and not self-aware. but clearly i have had a lot of fun complaining about him! again, this is not an objective list.

conclusions

this show ran for 7 years. it got cancelled not because it deserved to, but because no one liked the soft reboot. it was on until 2018.

#thoughts #once upon a time #long post

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themosleyreview · 3 years

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The Mosley Review: Space Jam: A New Legacy

I believe there's a saying that comes to mind when I look upon this sequel. If it ain't broke, then don't try and fix it. In this day and age, I thought Hollywood was done with making sequels to films over 20 years old and trying to create a relevant story to justify its existence. Well apparently this movie was another example of why you just don't do it. To be honest, I liked the original Space Jam as a child and I thought it was fun, kind of corny but a good family film. The film acted as sort of biopic for the first portion and then became the looney adventure we all know and love. Now comes this film where it was copy and paste in the first half and then just diverted into the Looney Tunes level of the Oasis from Ready Player One, but not in a good way. Don't get wrong, I had fun with Bugs and the Tune Squad, but that’s where it ended. In front of them you have a terrible family drama that lost its way on the road to the Saturday Hallmark Channel movie premiere night. As much as it tries to be inspirational, its beats down that notion of following your dreams and makes the lead character the worst part of the film.

LeBron James plays a dramatized version of himself and I he said a line in the film I whole heartedly agree with. I believe his words were, "Athletes acting, that never goes well." Well he was right. This was by far one of the worst performances I've seen in a long time. There was no chemistry with his family, he was tone deaf and beyond unbearable when it came to the scenes with his sons. He was a terrible father figure and I see why one of them truly rebelled against him. Cedric Joe was good as his son Dominic "Dom" James and I loved his ambition to become something other than a basketball player. You can see the brilliance behind his coding skills and you actually root for him to go against his father. The chemistry between them was none existent though and that wasn't Cedric's fault. Sonequa Martin-Green is always a pleasure to watch perform and she was great in the film. Don Cheadle was outstanding and fun as the villainous A.I, Al-G Rhythm. He nailed that sweet spot between cartoony and serious. I really liked his character even though it was an insane jab to the real news story about Warner Brothers using an algorithm to manage production decisions. True story people, Google it. The Looney Tunes are all back and I loved them the most. They are as great as you remember them and have the best references and jokes that'll have you laughing for days. Zendaya did a great job as Lola Bunny and she continues to be one of the strongest female characters of the Tunes. With a film with tons of callbacks, they missed the chance for someone to call her Doll.

The score by Kris Bowers was good and really came to life during the last half of the film. The visual effects and animation were great, but there were times where Bugs looked a little scary. It really showed that not everything you can get away with in digital versus hand drawn animation. Aside from the terrible acting, the story of the film really lost its footing as the film dragged on. There was a clear moment when the film should've wrapped up and it just kept going. Remember in Ready Player One where most of us got caught up in the many references to other franchises, well this film keeps throwing every possible endorsement or brand in your face and it was very distracting. I believe that was intentional to jingle some keys in your face so you don't see the forgettable film that's playing out behind you. This film wasn't as horrible as it could've been, but it is definitely forgettable. It is currently in theaters and streaming on HBO Max. Let me know what you thought of the film or my review in the comments below. Thanks for reading!

#space jam a new legacy #lebron james #Don Cheadle #sonequa martin green #cedric joe #zendaya #Warner Brothers

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9worldstales · 3 years

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MCU Loki Ep 3 “Lamentis 1” intensive analysis

Before we start I’ll warn you. As far as I’m involved this episode, compared to the others, is pretty weak in terms of plot and dialogues. It has some good moments but it has also other moments that… are not so good. So consider yourself warned.

We start a new episode and, after the usual summary of what happened previously we notice that… the opening music has changed again. This time it’s “Demons” by Hayley Kiyoko. The Marvel studios writing is still green and gold and the change of musici s good because this is the music that’s also being played at the beginning of the episode which shows two girls in a local, drinks in front of them, checking a menu.

The scene is so ordinary at first one might not immediately realize they’re actually Hunter C-20 and the Loki Variant we’ve met in the past episode.

They’re chatting as two friends would do, at least on the surface.

Actually the Loki Variant is trying to get C-20 to tell her how many people are guarding the Time-Keepers.

As C-20 realizes the question is out of place, the scenery changes and the Loki Variant distracts her to just asks her the same question. C-20 is about to reply when she realizes she knows the place where they’re in but not the Loki Variant, who however reassures her telling her it’s just she’s tired.

The scene switches and we see the truth.

C-20 is actually unconscious and the Loki Variant is pressing her fingers against her temple. The place they were in was all a dream, an illusion created by the Loki Variant who now asks C-20 how do she find the elevators… which either means she decided to change question or that they’ve skipped part of the interrogation because C-20 never replied to the question about how many people are guarding the Time-Keepers.

Whatever, we learn the elevators leading to them are gold.

The Loki Variant moves away her hand, smiling, as if this was all she wanted to know then moves her gaze to the monitors and spot Loki among the other TVA agents.

Maybe it’s just me but although Loki looks pretty different from her it seems almost as if she has recognized him.

The question if the Loki Variant was really a Loki or someone who, after meeting him, pretended to be him is still in the air… even though, of course, there’s the possibility that Loki Variant had met other Loki Variants who looked like our Loki. We’ll see.

We get the theme with the Loki logo and then we switch back to the TVA. In case you’ve forgotten the TVA is going through mobilization due to the sacred timeline having been attacked in the past episode.

The Loki Variant appears in the TVA and ties her hair before walking in search of the elevators. I really hope C-20 gave her other hints beyond they’re golden or she would have to go through all the TVA to find them.

The Timedoor remains open behind her.

Now… from the way she acts it doesn’t seem like she wanted Loki to follow her… and she’s clearly familiar with the working of the tempad and timedoor… so it feels weird how she didn’t worry Loki might have indeed followed her through the timedoor.

It was fine if this was exactly her plan but like this… it’s just weird.

Anyway, back to the Loki Variant she tries to enchant a hunter but her magic doesn’t work because, remember? Magic doesn’t work in the TVA but evidently the Loki Variant had no idea which tells us she never been at the TVA or when she went there she didn’t try to use magic and clearly she hadn’t asked about it at C-20.

The Loki Variant ends up fighting him. She steals his baton and uses it to reset him. 3 more hunters come and she disposes of them and okay, the show is trying to portray her as a cool fighter.

I’ve mixed feelings on this because I approve she’s a cool fighter but I remember Loki didn’t have an easy time fighting B-15. So sure, maybe B-15 is better than those 3 hunters but it wasn’t said anywhere, therefore the whole thing gets a little messy.

I mean, we saw Loki fighting in the past. Although he wasn’t the strongest Asgardian fighter he could hold his ground against Frost Giants, Dark Elves, and Hela’s dead army.

So okay, he was weaponless but still, if Loki has troubles dealing with B-15 who saw the movies come to the conclusion that B-15 alone is stronger than some Frost Giants, some Dark Elves, and some men from Hela’s dead army.

Then the Loki Variant gets into the TVA and she can fight 3 TVA Hunters at the same time with no problem. So either they’re pretty weak or the idea is that she’s pretty amazing… but still this makes our Loki comparatively very weak compared to her and it gets worse if people hadn’t seen the movies and don’t know he can fight.

It’s true later we’ll learn the Loki Variant likes to use pure strength wherein Loki prefers other techniques so she might have affined her fighting techniques but Loki still was from a warrior culture and forced to fight since he had to go to battle with his brother.

If they’re both Loki they should have the same potential. On the other side it might be it’s just I don’t get how they get these Variants. The TVA jumped on Loki as soon as he did something he wasn’t supposed to. How did the other Variants instead managed to get so different?

Whatever, it’s rumoured the next episode will deal with this Loki Variant backstory so we might learn it there.

Anyway as the Loki Variant dispose of the Hunters Loki, who in Ep 2 also went through the door just before it disappeared after him, reaches the TVA. He somehow knows which way the Loki Variant went but, before walking after her, he gets the knives Mobius wanted to give him and B-15 put in a wardrobe.

Was that wardrobe left open? Does Loki know how to pick a lock? Or did he broke it? No idea.

Anyway the Loki Variant walks quickly and reaches the golden elevator where she disposes of two more hunters.

Loki pants but arrives right behind her while walking (not sure why he’s panting then, did he too fought Hunters?).

Loki and the Loki Variants face each other, weapons in hand, the Loki Variant having grabbed her sword she didn’t use before because… she was too cool for it?

Loki wants to question her, wants to make sure she’s a Loki.

The Loki Variant rudely tells him if he has nothing else to do.

They decide they’re each other in the other way and start fighting.

The Loki Variant seems slightly better though she’s clearly not aiming to kill him as she did with the Hunters. I’m not sure if Loki is holding back as well. Loki admits considering to work with her but deciding against it because she lacks vision so he wants her to come with him, willingly or not, and use her to get at the Time-Keepers. Loki manages a couple of good moves and then they end up in a stalemate interrupted by Renlayer and two more hunters.

The Loki Variant manages to use Loki’s distraction to get behind him, using him as a shield and pointing her sword at him, telling Renslayer if she’ll come closer she’ll kill Loki.

It’s not Renslayer cares (she probably thinks it would be better to get rid of Loki as he’s a negative influence to her favourite analyst) as she tells her to go for it.

Loki uses the Loki Variant’s distraction to steal the tempad from her and open a timedoor below them, causing them to fall through it as Renslayer attempts to hit them.

From the way she looks Loki I get the feeling she wasn’t targeting just the Variant but him as well.

Anyway Loki and the Variant are lucky and end up on a bed.

This time the Timedoor should have closed immediately because neither Renslayer nor another hunter try to jump through it to give them chase.

Loki and the Variant fight for the fallen Tempad. The Variant slams Loki’s head against a table, managing to get the Tempad only to discover the battery needs to be recharged and so it doesn’t work.

After remaining on the ground for some moments Loki stands again. She tries using her sword against him and he uses his magic to come behind her and toss her on the ground before grabbing the Tempad as… the Variant tries to grab him and fail. Her attempt seems weak though.

Overall… I think they should have planned all those fighting scenes better since there’s so much of it in those first 7 minutes.

The Variant demands it back as she claims he doesn’t know how to recharge it… and while this will turn out to be true, how would she know?

Loki claims he does know how to recharge it as she’s not the only tech savvy Loki… which could be true since Loki showed he could learn very fast how to use the Time Twister and and no problems to previously use the Tempad to open a time door, never mentioning they showed him video of how the TVA worked and he learnt about the working of the Time charges.

The Variants complain he shouldn’t call her like that which confuses Loki as he sees no problem with being called ‘tech savvy’. The Variant clarifies she doesn’t want to be called ‘Loki’.

As she tries to grab the Tempad, this time without trying to hit him (no idea why as sending him on the ground might have helped), Loki causes it to disappear.

She comments that he’s ‘fully a magician’ which is better than Thor in ��Thor: Ragnarok” saying he was a witch. Loki is still not impressed and grabs back his knives claiming he’ll make her disappear now.

They’re about to fight again when something hits the place they’re in.

Loki asks her if that was one of her powers while she worries about where did he sent them.

She realizes he sent them on Lamentis-1 in 2077 and she calls him an idiot as this is the worse apocalypse they could end in since the moon is about to crash and destroy the planet and no one will survive it.

On a sidenote… the moon about to fall… isn’t well rendered.

Anyway Loki correctly points out he didn’t have the time to chose but again, I get the feeling they’re trying to paint the Loki Variant as better than him. In truth Loki did good as well, using his magic to steal and hid the Tempad… and it makes sense she’s more knowledgeable about apocalypses as that’s her Tempad and she might have been there previously but still it feels as she’s above him.

The Variant saves Loki from blowing up although she claims she did it solely to save the Tempad as it’s her only way out of Lamentis-1. Loki helps her as well only to be told she doesn’t need it.

I think the idea is that the Variant, like Loki, tries to protect an image of self confidence.

They hid in small… cabin? To catch their breath and the Variant gets close to Loki enough she can rest her hand on his neck, him letting her do it without protesting. However, when she tries to enchant him, she claims it didn’t work and asks him if it’s because he’s a magician. Loki says it’s actually because his mind is too strong.

Now it would be an interesting twist if actually she did manage to enchant him and all we see after that scene is an illusion to get Loki to do something… but I genuinely doubt it.

Overall the scene feels weird with Loki allowing her to get so close and yet resisting to her enchantment totally with her dropping the idea of enchanting him immediately… as if they were trying to suggest something romantic.

And okay, selfcest is a thing in fanfictions and I’ve nothing against it but… it feels out of place in such situation. I’m all for Loki learning to love himself, but when I say so I mean HIMSELF, not another version of himself.

They consider fighting again then Loki tries to propose a truce as fighting there in such a situation would be pointless, since they’re short of time and neither of them can leave until they can turn on the Tempad.

Honestly… the Loki Variant is so fighting prone she makes me think more of a Thor Variant than of a Loki Variant. For all she defends her plan, she doesn’t really seem someone who plans things and acts rationally… and she somehow seems to have a terrible opinion of Loki, even if supposedly she has just met him, as she thinks the only reason he had to save her was because he needed her to recharge the Tempad, refuses to be called Loki and insists on her need to kill him.

Of course this might be her own way to not show weakness but still…

Anyway the Loki Variant agrees to cooperate by pointing out that there should be power on that moon so if they could get enough to make the Tempad work they would be fine.

Anyway they leave to search for the power source and the rocks falling on them become magically a lot less.

The Loki Variant continues to be rude with Loki:

“And can you shut up? Just because I have to work with you doesn't mean I wanna hear your voice.”

She’s also annoyed Loki doesn’t seem so worried from the ‘imminent death’ they’re about to risk and doesn’t want him to call her “Variant”, she wants to be called Sylvie even though she used to be called “Loki” but, apparently, she has dropped that identity.

Since our Loki criticizes how she’s going by that alias (it’s not very Loki-like) they’ve a discussion on what makes a Loki a Loki.

According to our Loki it’s ‘independence, authority, style.

At this point the show acknowledges the TVA isn’t good by having Sylvie saying:

Sylvie: So, naturally you went to work for the boring, oppressive time police.

To be honest, it’s not much because being boring isn’t really a crime but well, at least they have acknowledged they’re oppressive.

Loki counters he’s not working for them, he’s a consultant… which means nothing because he’s a consultant working for them. But whatever, I get he might not feel like telling her they had threatened to reset him if he didn’t cooperate.

Sylvie accuses him of not knowing what he wants… and I’ll be honest, maybe it’s right but since they’ve hardly spent any time together at this point so, unless she is assuming he works exactly like her and therefore she too doesn’t know what she wants, she doesn’t feel reliable.

I really hope she’s not playing the role of the self insert for the author in this bit.

Anyway Loki made clear previously he aimed to get at the Time-Keepers I’ll say the overall idea is HE KNOWS he wants to get at the Time-Keepers and thinks playing consultant will get him close to them. He might not know what he’ll do afterward should he get close to them and he might have other goals in addition to that but still… he seems to know a bit of what he wants.

Not that I find Loki’s plan a particular bright one as I’ll say it’s clear the TVA isn’t planning to let him meet the Time-Keepers not even if he were to save the Sacred Timeline 10 times in a single day because he is and remains a Variant and this makes them look down on him, never mention he’s considered insubordinate, stubborn, unpredictable and an evil, lying scourge and that they would probably consider him meeting the Time-Keepers only after they had brainwashed him into compliance.

Anyway the following discussion is interesting.

Loki: Oh, yeah? What about you? Your years-in-the-making plan was to tear the place down, create the ultimate power vacuum, and then just walk away. I'd never have done that.

Sylvie: Yeah? Well, I'm not you. Can we get on with this now?

I like to think that Loki would never do that because he knows a power vacuum isn’t a good thing. He was part of a ruling house, so he would probably know this would only result in chaos and, possibly, war until a new leader would rise to power.

This also might tie in with his mindset in “The Avengers” in which he believed that if humans were to be united under his rule they would cease fighting among them. To Loki used to Odin’s absolutist monarchy the various governments of Earth bitching among them might look like there’s an ultimate power vacuum that’s causing wars among states.

Sylvie instead seems to be moved just by her idea of destroying the TVA and who cares about what happens afterward.

While wanting to be the one who would fill the power vacuum resulting by getting rid of the Time Keepers might seem to be moved by ambitions, not worrying about the consequences of getting rid of them is not clever.

Anyway Loki sighs. He… is trying to get along with Sylvie more than she’s trying to get along with him, apparently. Does he feel sympathy for her? Hard to say.

They reach an empty city and, on Loki’s prompting Sylvie explain they’ve around 12 hours as things will only get worse.

I’m not an expert in moon crashing but, at the moment, they don’t have anymore asteroids falling on their heads so things seem to be going better… but I actually find weird they are. But maybe it’s just because I’m not an expert in moon crashing.

Loki wonders if a night light could recharge the Tempad, Sylvie pretends it could and asks him for the Tempad but he recognizes it as an attempt to get the Tempad and refuses at which she informs him they need a massive power source to recharge it… and okay, I’m confused again.

They had Loki study how the TVA works. They let him know how the Time charge works and he paid enough attention to it to remember it and… is it they didn’t tell him how the Tempad works or that he didn’t pay attention? I’m not sure which of the two I would find more weird.

Whatever, maybe they just didn’t mention how to recharge it.

Honestly I would just prefer if Loki asked it knowing a night light couldn’t recharge it, just to test her.

They reach a small house with someone living it.

In a very Thor-like fashion Sylvie plans to get inside using brute force to get what she wants which is… surely not energy for the Tempad as it’s clear the place doesn’t have a massive power source.

Loki points out how:

Loki: Brute force is no substitute for diplomacy and guile.

He’s right and as to prove the point Sylvie only ends up being blasted away as the old lady living in the place has quite a powerful weapon. Loki mocks her before starting a nice chat with the lady and I approve how he handles the whole thing until… he turns himself into the Lady’s husband and try to pretend he’s him without even knowing his character.

In fact he’s too nice with the Lady and gets blasted as well.

And now I roll my eyes because it turns out all they wanted from the lady were answers to some questions.

Sylvie in fact asks her “Where is everyone?” which is a question at which I think the Lady would have replied without need to use violence or disguise as her husband but that honestly feels silly. Sylvie should have known they all left in attempt to escape with the Ark, as she knew about the Ark because, not only she knows it would have enough juice to repower the TemPad but she knew it would get destroyed. So really, she should have expected people to go there.

Loki asks “How do we get there?” which is the only question that makes sense but really, if he wanted to pose the same question as Sylvie which need there was to disguise himself?

The Lady says to go to the train station, though she’ll warn they’ll never get a ticket.

And I go back a little to look at some things.

First thing first. The Lady looks like a human so apparently either we colonized Lamentis 1 or there’s another race of human looking aliens. It’s not a crime but it feels kind of boring.

The bit with first Sylvie then Loki being blasted away present some funny dynamics between the two.

The idea the old Lady calls them devils is… not so good unless she’s again, a human who believes in demon, and even then it feels weird. What’s more she tells them they’re demons yet she gives them the info they’re asking for remarking they didn’t need to use strength or illusions to get that info.

Whatever, we jump at the train station where some sort of guards refuses to let the poor people go on the train.

Loki observes they can’t fight their way on the train, which is something he expects her to want to do because all her plans involve fighting.

I’ll say he doesn’t know her from a long time but yes, so far fighting was part of all the Sylvie’s plans, even when she didn’t need it.

Sylvie says her plan is just to enchant the guard… because yeah, if it’s not fighting for Sylvie, then it’s enchantment. However she mentions possible troubles occurring and at this Loki asks if she plans to make him start shooting and then kill every guard and hijack the train. Sylvie doesn’t deny it… which is kind of dumb as she could have said she would just swap and posses who were to attempt to give them troubles as she had done when she and Loki met.

At this Loki decides they would do things his way and disguises himself as a guard… with Sylvie as his prisoner. Why not disguising Sylvie as a guard as well? No idea.

I mean, it’s unnatural that with a moon about to collapse on them they would worry to have a prisoner board the train to salvation. Much better to let her die there.

Anyway Sylvie complains it’s a shit plan but plays along.

And yeah, all the people there are human looking. Space is not really that diverse, especially since they’re allowing only rich people to board. It reminds me how on the Titanic only the rich people was allowed to go on the lifeboats.

Anyway Loki’s plan seems to work when a guard decides to stop them.

I’m not sure why but Loki seems to talk in an unnatural way as he says he’s taking Sylvie to Shuuro. The guard still wants them to have the tickets and is about to call someone else when Sylvie enchants him.

We could call it teamwork, but since it seems to work smoothly only thanks to Sylvie it feels more like she did all the job.

I’ve mixed feelings for Loki not managing to trick a guard and sounding so unnatural.

I mean, Loki should supposedly be good at this, although yes, in the previous movies, starting with “Thor” he wasn’t always good at this, but here he seems just bad at this.

Whatever.

On the train he claims he can't go backwards on a train and would like for Sylvie to hand him her place. She doesn’t.

Now, who can't go backwards on a train normally suffer of motion sickness… but Loki will give no signs of suffering of it so… why tossing these lines in?

Sylvie though comes out as generally nasty as she claims she can’t switch because she never sit with her back to a door but, as Loki points out, there are doors on both sides.

Once Loki sits down Sylvie starts complaining Loki’s plan wasn’t a plan as plans should have multiple steps, which isn’t necessarily true and anyway her own didn’t have multiple steps either.

Loki doesn’t counter anything, as if trying to be nice and then notices her yawning and suggests her to rest.

She refuses.

Sylvie: I can't sleep in a place like this.

Loki: You can't sleep on a train?

Sylvie: No. I can't sleep around untrustworthy people.

It’s the second time they used this type of dialogue in which Loki seems to misunderstand why Sylvie said.

Loki: Of course I do. You're not the only tech savvy Loki.

Sylvie: Don't ever call me that.

Loki: Tech savvy?

Sylvie: No, a Loki. You're just fully a magician then?

Anyway as Loki is the untrustworthy person I really can’t see what she fears from him. She saw herself how the Tempad doesn’t work so it’s not like he can use it to escape alone.

She encourages Loki to sleep which he refuses and she points out she can’t steal the Tempad form him due to him knowing magic. This prompt Loki to explain his mother taught him magic.

Sylvie asks what she was like and he describes Frigga as ‘A Queen of Asgard. She was good. Purely decent.’

As it will turn out Sylvie doesn’t remember her mother this might be the reason for her question… though she might also try to find some ground to enchant Loki as well.

Anyway she rudely asks him if he’s sure she was his mother. He cheerfully counters he was adopted and asks her if this is a spoiler for her.

I don’t really like this because this discovery was pretty painful for Loki so it makes it look like as, by saying so, he might aim to emotionally hurt Sylvie… which might not even be the case because for all he know she could have been lovely raised by her real parents.

Instead Sylvie points out she knew she was adopted. Is that why the TVA arrested her? Because she knew she was adopted differently from Loki? Or because she presented as a girl? Was she born this way? If that’s the case shouldn’t the TVA go catch her because that wasn’t how she was supposed to look? Or it was Odin’s spell? Anyway again, the TVA shouldn’t have appeared?

Whatever, Loki admits his parents didn’t tell him, then corrects himself saying they eventually told him which is a gross oversimplification because he had to force the truth out of Odin but we aren’t going to talk about this because Loki wants to know about Sylvie’s mother… who is… who?

Sylvie doesn’t remember her, was she Frigga or not?

Whatever, Loki tells her how Frigga used to do magic for him and encourages him, assuring him he could do it as well.

Loki: You know, when I was young, she'd do these little bits of magic for me. Like turn a flower into a frog or cast fireworks over the water. It all seemed impossible. She told me that I'd be able to do it too because... Because I could do anything.

Okay, so this memory from Loki’s past is very nice and confirms the canon Loki was taught magic by Frigga (the scene saying so in “Thor: The Dark World” was cut). Loki shows Sylvie how to make magical firework. Nobody notices Loki using magic which is weird. Sylvie is touched and doesn’t see his display of magic as something that could cause them troubles at all.

Loki goes on saying about Frigga:

Loki: She was the kinda person you'd want to believe in you.

It’s overall a nice chat but then Loki asks Sylvie:

Loki: So, where'd you learn to do the... You know, the... Whatever it is?

It’s enchantment! Loki himself called it so in episode 2! Why this ‘whatever it is’? Is he looking down on her for it?

Sylvie explains she taught herself and Loki asks how it works… because evidently she scene at the end of “Thor” in which he enchanted/possessed Selvig was scrapped by canon.

No, I’m not criticising the series here, it can very well be they scrapped it from canon as in all “The Avengers” there’s no mention of Loki previously controlling Selvig and when he does it in the movie he does so by using the mind stone in the sceptre.

To Loki asking how it works Sylvie would like to show him by enchanting him, which Loki refuses fearing she’s trying to get the Tempad… because really, it’s not like it failed spectacularly at the start of the episode.

Loki starts drinking champagne which Sylvie instead refuses.

They end up talking of the old woman they met, Loki saying it’s a pity she chose to die.

I wish they had talked here of how he chose to die when Odin rejected him but they prefer to talk about LOVE instead.

Sylvie claims she was in love and Loki points out that she hated the man.

Now the idea the lady remained behind because Patrice died is an assumption. Correctly she assumed they wouldn’t let her board the train so it’s possible she merely wanted to spend her last moment at home instead than waiting for a train she wouldn’t be allowed to take.

As if to either deliberately go against Loki or refuse to lose an argument with him Sylvie suggests that ‘love is hate’. So does she love the Time-Keepers and that’s why she wants to blast them away? Or does she love Renslayer?

Loki mocks her slightly, attempting to write down what she said but what he did seems to amuse her. He then asks her if she has a beau.

Sylvie replies she’s in a relationship with a postman, which seems her own attempt at a joke… though since she adds it was only ever just to keep her going she might have had someone.

She feels pretty sad as she says so.

She then turns the conversation on Loki, pointing out how he’s a prince and asking him if he had a would-be-princesses or perhaps, another prince.

So… isn’t Sylvie a princess? Who knows?

As Loki says he had a bit of both, supposedly same as Sylvie he and Sylvie agree those relations vnever felt real.

Loki says he had a bit of both and suspect she also had both as well but none of his relations even felt real.

Sylvie concludes this should mean love is mischief and I get their point but I wish they didn’t generalize. Loki says that’s not it but, to define love, he’ll need another drink.

Somehow between the two Sylvie in that moment seems to be more dismissive of love than Loki.

She then lectures him on how they’re about to try and hijack the power source to a civilization's only hope and since it's not gonna be easy they should rest… which is what Loki suggested her to do but she claimed she couldn’t do around him.

Loki agrees but tells her she should relax her way and he would relax his own.

The scene switches and we see that Sylvie has fallen asleep and is now awaken by Loki singing some Norvegian/Asgardian song, with the other passengers. Loki is back in his own TVA clothes, which worries Sylvie.

A passenger observes him and then decides that’s the right moment to go report his actions to… someone. And it’s the right moment to do it solely because now Sylvie is awake and sees him doing it so she can worry.

Since people there is playing the song Loki is singing and even singing along with him, Loki should have been going at it for a while but, of course, if the guy had done it sooner and Sylvie hadn’t noticed him it wouldn’t have worked well.

Back to Loki he seems to be singing his song to Sylvie and, in fact, when he ends it, he dedicates it to her before swallowing his drink and demanding another, breaking the glass on the floor.

Sylvie goes to scold him for being drunk to which he complains he’s not drunk, he’s full. Only someone said to say full and drunk in Norvegian you use the same word so it can be some sort of wordplay. Or not.

Loki would like her to try some food, Sylvie asks him about his uniform, reminding him how they were supposed to lay low.

Loki insists nobody cares because it’s the end of the world. He’s clearly drunk, he even drops a plate. As she insists something should be up he asks her why she’s so paranoid and she replies:

Sylvie: It must have started when I spent my entire life running from the omniscient fascists you work for.

Okay, it’s nice to learn this small info about Sylvie and to have the TVA referred as omniscient fascists. Just in case someone missed the TVA is a bad organization.

It doesn’t get any deeper than that as Loki switches topic by claiming he has an answer to what love is.

Loki: Love is a dagger. It's a weapon to be wielded far away or up close. You can see yourself in it. It's beautiful. Until it makes you bleed. But ultimately, when you reach for it...

Sylvie: It isn't real.

Loki: Yeah.

Sylvie: Love is an imaginary dagger.

WARNING: THE PREVIOUS BIT WAS WRITTEN WITHOUT ME HAVING SEEN EPISODE 4 AS WELL. THE FOLLOWING ONE WAS INSTEAD WRITTEN AFTER I SAW IT. BEWARE FOR SPOILERS ON EP 4.

So that point of all this is…

“I wrote that really, really quick,” Waldron explains. “I remember I was revising Episode 3 in the two weeks leading up to my wedding. It’s interesting because that's probably the most romantic episode. At that point, Loki is a little bit drunk. That freed me up, where it was just like, ‘Don't think too hard about it,’ which is sort of my first thought that Loki would think here.”

Doesn’t exactly make sense? For Loki, it doesn’t need to make sense for him to be convincing with it, and Waldron relied on that. “I just ran with it, ‘Love is a dagger,’” shares Waldron. “And fortunately, like many of Loki's metaphors, it almost works.” [‘Loki’: The Meaning Behind ‘Love Is A Dagger’]

In short it’s only a drunk Loki’s babbling for Waldron, something that doesn’t need to make sense.

Great, we could talk of the TVA being a fascist organization but no, let’s have Loki say something that doesn’t make sense.

Tom Hiddleston too doesn’t find it anything profound but, at least, he ties it to Loki’s experience with love, which always hurt him.

But in fairness to Loki, this “imaginary dagger” has honestly been his experience in his relationships so far, with Hiddleston continuing that, up until this point, this “is Loki's experience of love, I suppose. He certainly feels like it's not been something he's been close to. It has been some sort of illusion that he has trusted and been let down by.”

Now, since this is a damn episode about love and Loki and Sylvie being bisexual, instead than getting Loki drunk and coming up with this sort of statements they could have showed up glimpses of his past love relations with men and women. But no, let’s let Loki babble about love because, sorry for the SPOILER but by now I expect everyone and their moms to know and anyway it’s fairly obvious from the setting, the whole episode is about to lead him to the way in which he’ll have a moment with Sylvie in Ep 4.

Anyway the man comes back with 4 or more guards that want… to check Loki’s ticket.

I don’t know how public transportation works on Lamentis 1 but the idea that a man would suspect Loki to not have his ticket because he was drunk and singing with the rest of the passengers and so 4 guards come to check on him just in case he’s actually dangerous is pretty weird.

I’m bad at recognizing people but Loki saying ‘you again’ makes me think that guy is the one who they met at the start of their travel. Anyway, Sylvie doesn’t get in between and possess the buy but let Loki handle matters… only Loki is drunk and instead of conjuring tickets up with magic he conjures up fireworks. So, instead than giving him a fine or telling him ‘no jokes, the tickets now’, they try to restrain him. Note they don’t care about restraining Sylvie and… they let one of Loki’s hands free because why restrain both?

A fight ensues and evidently people in Lamentis 1 are extraordinarily strong because, although fighting wasn’t Loki’s strongest suit COMPARED TO ASGARDIANS, he was still strong enough alone he could hold his ground against Frost Giants and Dark Elves.

Whatever, we’re supposed to believe he’s drunk so that he can’t even throw well his knives and I guess being drunk made him weak but what about Sylvie?

I mean, Sylvie, who had been killing TVA men, despite getting involved in the fight, doesn’t try to kill the guards, nor does Loki. They evidently didn’t even hit them that hard as the guards keep on getting up and two of them manage to toss off the train Loki. Note that when Sylvie tries to toss herself out of the train realizing Loki has the TemPad… THEY TRY TO STOP HER! WHY?!?

It’s so damn convenient for them if both Loki and Sylvie end out of the train!

Once out of the train Loki discharges his jacket for… no reason we can know of. Maybe it got ruined. Whatever.

He walks after the running train for a while before giving up five steps after where Sylvie fell because evidently he realized only then he couldn’t get back on it. At this point Sylvie point her sword at him, demanding the Tempad back and he… decides to give it to her, which he had refused before, but who care because although the TemPad was in a dimensional pocket it somehow got broken during Loki’s fall.

My guess is, since Loki put his hand behind his back, the TemPad wasn’t in a dimensional pocket but Loki merely made it invisible and when he retrieved it and made it visible again it turned out it was broken.

Whatever, he clearly didn’t have the Tesseract or the Casket of Ancient Winters in his back pocket so I don’t see why he couldn’t just use the same dimensional pocket he used back then for the Tempad but had to turn it invisible… except for the fact that they wanted him to break it.

Sylvie starts yelling at him ‘You asshole. You killed us. You're not a serious man. You're a clown. You got drunk on the train.’ Yadda, yadda.

She’s right but the problem I see with all this is WHY LOKI GOT DRUNK?

I mean, the Loki of the myth would get drunk and lose control of himself, all right, but our Loki wouldn’t. When Tony Stark offered him a drink in “The Avengers” Loki didn’t accept it and then another and another and got plastered, nor he drank in Asgard in “Thor”, not even to drown his sorrow and even in “Thor: Ragnarok” when he watches the show he’s not drunk.

He has a cup of what I assume is mead, okay, but he’s not drunk.

So all of sudden he decided it was a moment to get drunk, because the story demanded him to sing a song to Sylvie, getting discovered, not fighting as well as he should and ending up out of the train to break the tempad.

This is a huge plot contrivance in an episode that’s filled with them.

So Loki and Sylvie get into a discussion on how Loki did it because he’s hedonistic with Sylvie saying me too but never at the expense of the mission, which was how Loki was before being in this series.

Loki shoots down Sylvie’s mission.

Loki: Oh, the mission? The mission? What, your glorious purpose? Give me a break. You can't beat them.

I wish they would just stop shooting around the words ‘glorious purpose’. A statement Loki said in “The Avengers” once is becoming the series verbal tick.

Even the sentence ‘the mission’ feels a bit weird because normally people don’t refer to their own goal as ‘a mission’. A mission is more often than not something that’s given to you by others but, so far, we were never told someone was moving Sylvie from behind the lines.

Whatever, Loki tells her she can’t beat the Time-Keepers because… no idea. Just because the Infinity Stones don’t work at the TVA it doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t be stabbed and die.

Sylvie has a nervous breakdown and screams releasing her power which, I guess, is meant to parallel what Loki did when Frigga died. Which was partially cut as we never saw Loki screaming.

Whatever, it just doesn’t have the same emotional intensity because in that scene Loki was broken by Frigga’s death while here Sylvie just seems angry.

Loki goes to sit next to her the way he used to do with Thor in “Thor” which again make me think that Sylvie, more than a Loki, is a Thor.

Anyway they have a chat about their future and the one of the planet in which it turns out Sylvie knew about the Ark and how it never left because it got destroyed. So really, there was no need to ask that old lady where everyone went when she knew they were all trying to reach it.

Loki suggests to hijack the ark and make sure it gets off this moon at which Sylvie agreed because… well, I guess she can’t come up with a better option, without even realizing this would mean create a Nexus event and get the TVA come running.

As they walk toward the way Loki complains:

Loki: You know, I don't think I've ever walked this much in my life.

Differently from many people in the net I can buy it, because in Asgard they were shown to use horses or Skifts to cover great distances and that one seems to be a great distance.

Sylvie equates not having to walk that much to having a pretty good life. News flash, people can have a miserable life even if they don’t have to walk long distances. People enslaved, for example, didn’t necessarily have to run from a side to the other of the world, but yeah, the whole is just to remark how Loki lived a princely life.

Scott, Peter, might not have had to walk but definitely didn’t live royalty lives.

Loki kind of jokes about letting Sylvie enchant him so that he could sleep through the way, and he’s told that’s not how enchantment work. So… he doesn’t know?

In episode 2 he could recognize what Sylvie did as enchantment, in Ep 3 first he believes enchantment won’t work on him, then he has no idea what it was…

Loki: So, where'd you learn to do the... You know, the... Whatever it is?

…then he doesn’t know how it work? What is it, Loki is starting to suffer of amnesia?

Whatever. Loki compains he told her much about him but doesn’t know anything about her. So, for an episode that wants to set up them as a couple what Loki wants to know about her are… her powers. And he needs to know them so that he could know if he can trust her. Because if she has enchanted him already it’s not going to make a difference and if she couldn’t like the previous scene in which she seemed to fail to do so… it doesn’t make a difference either.

Really, this is just for:

A) talk about how enchantment works

B) to reveal to the audience and Loki how the people in the TVA are all Variants of regular people on Earth (again, why doesn’t the TVA takes… Krees, for example) who ends up being brainwashed by the Time-Keepers.

So yeah, another hint that the TVA is a terrible organization. Too bad it’s inserted in a terrible dialogue.

On another note… why all of sudden Sylvie finds Loki worth being trusted with such an explanation? Because enchantment doesn’t work on him? If that’s the case she could have told him sooner.

Anyway Loki is impressed she could learn that by herself, to the point he seems to view it as superior as what he can do.

Loki: And you call me a magician.

I’m impressed as well but for different reasons. I mean, she said she taught herself. But how in the world is that possible? She should have seen someone doing it and she should have been told how to do it, otherwise you don’t go and assume if you touch someone you can control them, or that you’ve to check their memories and present a fantasy and besides… if she could check C-20 memories couldn’t she just take those information she wanted from there?

Also… does the TVA take people all from a present time? Because C-20 memories were clearly in a modern setting and Mobius’ fixation with jet ski might come from the fact he lived at the same time in which they existed.

Now… they’re kilometres away from the city but they can hear the announcer in the city saying there are only 10 minutes to the launch. I mean… how loudly they’re transmitting that info, who’s close would have turned deaf!?!

So they reach the city in 5 MINUTES because they run as fast as that and decide they trust each other because… reasons.

Sylvie: Do we trust each other?

Loki: We do and you can.

Loki shows empathy by commenting on how ‘They're gonna let these people die.’ Which really won’t work so well with how they’ll try to pass him for a narcissist in the next episode.

Loki and Sylvie try to run to the Ark as meteorites start to fall more.

In the general panic, with the city starting to crash down, some guards feel like stopping them for… reasons.

Loki stops a falling building with his magic but doesn’t use it to send all the guards flying away but when they were still too far to make it to the Ark the latter is hit and, of course, rendered unable to leave.

Okay, so I really had a hard time to write all this because this episode is bad plot wise and dialogue wise and when you look at it in deep it only gets worse.

Not only it has plenty of plot contrivances that cascade also on the previous episodes so that things that happened that we could assume were due to Sylvie’s plan revealed to be for no reason at all but, when you watch episode 4 you realize the whole episode is just an excuse to keep Loki and Sylvie together for long enough they supposedly start having feelings for each other (Had they closed them in a room it would have been the same!) while using poor dialogues and a characterization of both that’s honestly not so impressive for two characters that are supposed to be extremely smart.

Sylvie tends to act with force more than with brain, Loki tries to use his brain but it either don’t work or he dumbs himself down by getting drunk for no reason.

Overall, it had been a disappointing episode.

#mcu loki #loki odinson #loki laufeyson #sylvie #frigga #9 worlds study #9 worlds study mcu loki

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whitewolfofwinterfell · 3 years

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Harry Potter re-read: thoughts and ranking my favourite books

In 2020 I completed a full re-read of Harry Potter for the first time since I was a child. It was a rollercoaster experience of highs and lows; excitement, nostalgia, frustration, joy, boredom and everything in between. It took the whole year (in between reading other books) and I hit a wall in the sumer, but I’m glad I persevered and made it to the end. This series will always hold a special place in my heart and as much as I love the movies, there’s so much detail that is missed from them. I didn’t realise just how much my memories of the HP universe had been shaped by the movies until I read the books. I feel like I’ve reconnected with the universe and characters in an authentic way and lots of my opinions have changed as a result.

Before we get to the ranking, some disclaimers:

If it wasn’t already obvious SPOILERS BELOW FOR THE HARRY POTTER SERIES (at this point I’d be surprised if there’s anybody that needs this warning, but better safe than sorry!).

This ranking is completely subjective and very changable. I love all of the books and I’ve based the ranking solely on my enjoyment of reading them.

In writing this post I am in no way supporting or endorsing J.K. Rowling’s works. Her ignorance and hatred is intolerable and abhorrent. I discuss this more in the conclusion of this post.

None of the images or gifs featured were made by me, all credit goes to the creators.

7. The Goblet of Fire

One of my favourite movies, but my least favourite book. This one hasn’t aged well for me. It’s too long, there’s much too filler and it has the disadvantage of coming after The Prisoner of Azkaban. I like the idea of the Triwizard Tournament in theory, but the execution is dull. We spend chapters upon chapters upon chapters with Harry and Hermione researching and preparing for the tasks and the tasks themselves are very anti-climatic. It’s also difficult to ignore the fact that the second and third tasks take part underwater and in a maze, and the audience can’t even see what’s going on. Apparently there’s no spell that can allow the audience to see underwater or inside a maze, not even those Muggle inventions called cameras *face palm*

The sub-plot with S.P.E.W was equally dull and didn’t add much to the story. I also found it deeply uncomfortable and upsetting to read about the enslavement of elves and the way that slavery was portrayed in general. The one positive I took from it was seeing Dobby with his crazy jumpers and socks. Dobby is The Best.

(credit to xbirdyblue on DeviantArt for this wonderful fanart image of Dobby)

The reactions to Harry’s name coming out of the Goblet of Fire is what infuriated me most in this book because it doesn’t even make sense. Firstly, does anybody really believe Harry’s capable of overcoming such powerful magic to put his name in? Secondly, why the fudging hell would Harry want to put his name in the Goblet? He’s a 14 year old child who has endured endless trauma; he’s spent most of his life living in an abusive household and the 3 years he’d been at Hogwarts fighting against Voldemort. He doesn’t want fame or glory, he just wants to live a normal, peaceful life and hang out with his best friends. Ron’s reaction is particularly annoying because he of all people should know Harry wouldn’t put his name in the Goblet. I understand why Ron felt that way and I love him but...

The one thing I did enjoy about this book is the evolution of Harry’s friendships with Ron and Hermione. Hermione is fiercely loyal to Harry and devoted every waking second to helping him succeed in the tasks. Despite Ron’s silly tantrum and their divide through most of the book, their falling out really does cement Harry’s love for Ron.

"He thought he could have coped with the rest of the school's behaviour if he could just have Ron back as his friend."

Harry liked Hermione very much, but she just wasn't the same as Ron. There was much less laughter and a lot more hanging round in the library."

"The thing Harry Potter will miss the most, sir!"

"Harry didn't care, he wouldn't have cared if Karkaroff had given him zero; Ron's indignation on his behalf was worth a hundred points to him."

What can I say? Ron is Harry’s platonic soul mate. That is all.

Barty Crouch’s escape from Azkaban and transformation into Moody is more cunning and intelligent than it was in the movies - this dude switched places with his mother and left her in Azkaban in his place!!

Fred and George were by far the highlight of this book for me. Their characters are great in the movies, but in the books they’re just--

Their antics, wit and banter are top notch. I’d actually forgotten that Harry gave his prize winnings from the Tournament to Fred and George, and it seems like such a huge injustice!! This act of kindness and selflessness on Harry’s part is largely why Fred and George are able to set up Wizard Wheezes. It’s a testament to Harry’s love for Fred and George that he gave them his winnings. Harry may not have needed the money but he could’ve done literally anything with it, and chose to give it to the twins because he believed in their ideas and wanted to give them the opportunity they needed.

GOF was always one of my favourite movies because of this moment:

Voldemort’s return was one of the most chilling, terrifying and shocking moments for me as a kid. The scene in the graveyard still stands out as being one of my favourite scenes from the movies. In the books, it didn’t have the same impact, unfortunately. In fact, this is what was noticeable to me all the way through reading this book - I like the movie more. The movie cuts out the filler, takes the interesting aspects of the book and does them better.

Overall, despite being at the bottom of my list, I still like GOF. It’s a huge step up in world-building and is an entertaining book with a great premise; I loved the Golden Trio’s friendship, the appearances from Dobby and Fred and George’s antics. Unfortunately, this book is let down by the sheer amount of filler, the underwhelming execution of the main plot and too much focus on sub-plots like S.P.E.W.

6. The Sorcerer’s Philosopher’s Stone

It was really difficult to rank Phliosopher’s Stone, because it holds a special place in my heart because it’s where the series began. This book does a great job at introducing Hogwarts and it captures those nostalgic, magical Hogwarts vibes unlike any of the other books. This book is all about the wonder and the joy of Hogwarts, and Hogwarts lives in my heart, so stepping into this magical world with Harry for the first time again was a joy to read.

I love the time spent in this book on experiencing the smaller wonders of the magical world with Harry - Platform 9 3/4, Hogwarts Express, Diagon Alley, Ollivanders, the Sorting Hat, Great Hall feasts, ghosts etc. It’s exciting and fun to read about, and truly a gem of a book for children.

Seeing Harry go from living in a cupboard and suffering abuse and neglect to an incredible world full of wonder and people who want to get to know him and show him kindness was a joy to read. I love the development of Harry, Ron and Hermione’s friendship and how, despite how short the book is, it’s developed properly. Their friendship with Hermione doesn’t happen overnight, but by the end there’s a genuine bond and trust between them.

But of course, as the first book in the series, the plot is lacking and the writing isn’t at its strongest. Also, despite how short it is I did feel a little bored reading the second half. It’s a great entry to the series and does a wonderful job at establishing the world, main trio and other characters, but in the grander scheme of the series it’s quite bland a forgettable.

5. The Deathly Hallows

Now this one came as a big surprise to me, because before my re-read I considered The Deathly Hallows to be my favourite book, but I just didn’t enjoy it this time around. The first 50-60% of this book got me like:

I was bored as hell. The travelling, the hunting for Horcruxes, Dumbledore’s backstory, the bickering between Harry, Ron and Hermione...it was tiresome. Fortunately, amongst that there were a lot of isolated things that I enjoyed.

Firstly, I adore the Tale of the Three Brothers, it’s interesting and I love the depiction of it in the movies - it’s just so cool!

Secondly, Ron and Hermione are very cute in this book, and for the first time I appreciated them as a romantic ship.

Thirdly, Harry looking through Sirius’ room and finding a letter from Lily broke my heart. This moment is so touching and completely unexpected, since I’d forgotten about it over the years.

(credit to alessiatrunifo for this stunning fanart)

Fourthly, LUNA LOVEGOOD. You know what? I have no qualms in saying Luna is one of my new favourite characters since my re-read. I always liked her, but she never stood out to me, and that’s changed. It’s not just that she’s unique and wacky, but that she’s fiercely independent, moral, kind and loyal. Luna has such a strong sense of who she is and she doesn’t let anyone or anything contradict that.

Can I also admit that I might slightly ship Harry and Luna now? 🙊 Luna seeing through Harry’s disguise as “Barney Weasley” based on his facial expressions alone and their reactions to the possibility of the other being in danger touched my heart.

"'She will [survive],' said Harry. He could not bear to contemplate the alternative. 'She's tough Luna, much tougher than you'd think. She's probably teaching all the inmates about Wrackspurts and Nargles.'"

"Oh, no, I didn't want you to be caught!"

They’re cute, okay?

Finally, Kreacher! This was perhaps one of the biggest surprises from reading this book, because I’d completely forgotten about Kreacher’s story. And boy, oh, boy did this pull on my heartstrings. Kreacher has one of the most tragic backstories in the HP universe and he absolutely deserves the redemption he got in this book. I loved seeing him develop a genine relationship with Harry, Ron and Hermione, and the fact that they never went back for him made me so sad. Poor Kreacher!

I enjoyed all of these elements of the first half of the book, and then I got to The Sacking of Severus Snape and it was like:

This is where the book finally took off for me (unfortunately, it took 30 chapters to get there) and as soon as Harry, Ron and Hermione are back in Hogwarts I couldn’t put it down. There are so many brilliant moments and things I loved that all I can really do is bullet point them:

The character reunions.

Percy finally redeeming himself!!!!

McGonnagal being the most badass to ever badass.

Neville Longbottom owns my heart ❤❤❤

Neville's grandmother's response to finding out Neville was fighting in the battle - "Naturally [he is]. Excuse me, I must go and assist him."

Ron and Hermione's first kiss!! and Harry’s reaction to it - "Is this the moment? OI! There's a war going on here!"

Percy handing in his resignation whilst Stupefy-ing his boss - "Hello, Minister! Did I mention I'm resigning?"

The Forest Again was such an emotional chapter. It got me good.

"You'll stay with me?" "Until the very end." 😭

"Harry, you wonderful boy. You brave, brave man."

"Perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those, who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well."

Did I mention that Neville is bloomin' amazing?

Kreacher!!!!!! "Fight! Fight! Fight for my master, defender of the house-elves! Fight the Dark Lord in the name of brave Regalus! Fight!"

Reading The Flaw in the Plan was soooo much more satisfying than watching it play out on-screen in the movie.

In many ways DH has some of the best, most satisfying moments of any of the books. It’s a strong conclusion to the series and there’s so much that I loved about it; so many memorable and emotional moments (Dobby and Fred’s deaths still hit hard 20 years later). Unfortunately, it was dragged down by the first half of the book and the epilogue. I tried so hard to keep an open mind about the epilogue, but the truth is it still BLOWS. And the more time that passes the more I resent the decisions that were made about character deaths. I understand that the stakes were high and we needed to lose characters close to our hearts but Fred?? Dobby??? Remus??? NO! Just no, okay? I don’t accept that.

4. The Order of the Phoenix

Now, The Order of the Phoenix had similar issues as DH for me - it had a very slow start but a great ending. I did take a couple of months break in the middle of reading this one and distinctly remember slogging my way through the first half and devouring the second half.

I’ve made no secret over the years that Sirius and Remus are two of favourite HP characters, so I expected to enjoy OOTP a lot for that reason. I did really enjoy all the smatterings of Sirius and Remus we go throughout this book. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough for me. This book really highlighted for me how limited Harry’s POV was, because I wanted more of an insight into the Order but Harry was kept in the dark the entire time which was frustrating.

One of the main character highlights of this book is the legend Minverva McGonnagal. Her sass, strength and determination to defend Hogwarts and its students against Dolores is astounding. Here are some of my favourite McGonnagal moments:

"Well, usually when a person shakes their head they mean 'no.'"

"Can I offer you a cough drop, Dolores?"

"I should have made my meaning plainer. [Harry] has achieved high marks in all Defence Against the Dark Arts tests set by a compotent teacher."

Defending Hagrid against Umbridge.

And of course:

(Still can’t believe the movie robbed us of this!)

Time for a less popular opinion - I loved Harry in this book. In general, this book made me feel very protective of Harry, because Harry is bloomin’ incredible and deserves so much better than what he gets in this book. He’s always had a bad rep in OOTP for being an annoying, angsty teenager, but in my opinion, this is Harry at his most relatable and lovable. After everything Harry went through, he’s entitled to be angry with the world. He endured everything that he did and took the responsibility of the world onto his shoulders with little complaint, and in OOTP he reaches breaking point. Honestly, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner. The adults in Harry’s life are glaringly irresponsible in this book. Not only do they force him back to the Dursley’s after the hugely traumatic events of GOF based on some bull about “blood magic”, but they purposefully hide the truth from him even though that puts him at greater risk and adds to his emotional distress. Everyone around Harry expects him to be mature and act like an adult when he’s fighting against the darkest wizard of all time, yet don’t give him the courtesy or respect of telling him the truth about significant things that impact him and the people he loves. Sirius os the only person that refuses to belittle Harry, but in some ways, his behaviour is just as damaging as those that tried to shelter Harry from the truth, because he expects too much of Harry and projects James’ personality onto him. The adults around Harry fail him to such an extent in this book that he establishes the DA because he can’t even rely on the adults around him to keep him and his friends safe. Harry’s emotions in this book aren’t only understandable, but justified and I felt an even deeper connection to him as a result. His vulnerability shows his strength and courage more than ever before. This is the point where he goes from the Chosen One to a true champion, because even when he reaches rock bottom and wants to give up, he doesn’t walk away. I love Harry so much.

The Department of Mysteries is by far one of my favourite sections from any of the books. I love the friendship dynamics, Luna, Neville and Ginny are given the chance to really shine, the stakes are high, the action is great and despite the trauma of Sirius’ death, that moment is so hard-hitting and memorable. This section of the book just took it to a new level for me. It was really great.

The emotion of Sirius’ death was captured so perfectly, and is such a huge turning point for Harry. Like I said above, choosing to go on even after losing Sirius proves that Harry is a true hero; that he isn’t just doing what he was doing out of obligation or has been told to but because he believes in doing the right thing. I best move on before I continue to speak about how amazing Harry James Potter is.

Now we come to Neville. Can you believe that I’d actually forgot the details of Neville being the Chosen One? It was a blast learning about that again and how he’s connected to the prophecy. I also loved that we got to see his family and not just be told about it via dialogue. Neville is by far one of the most loveable and interesting minor characters in the series. He has so many great moments in books 1-4, but he really shines in OOTP.

The more I write about this book, the more I find things to love. It’s just a shame that the first half lets it down, because overall, I think there’s a lot of great material here in terms of plot and character development.

3. The Chamber of Secrets

I know that The Chamber of Secrets is generally ranked low amongst most fans, but I love it. At this point, the books were more simplistic and just fun, and I like that. I also have to acknowledge that I have a deep affinity for the COS movie - I grew up watching it over and over, and of all the movies it’s still the one I know best and always come back to (still can’t believe the “Why couldn’t it be follow the butterflies line?” wasn’t even in the books!)

I love all of the different elements in this book:

Dobby

The Burrow

The flying car

Whomping Willow

Moaning Myrtle

This idiot

Gilderoy Lockhart is one of my favourite antagonists in the entire series, because he isn’t intentionally bad, he’s just an arrogant fool. His primary concern is his image and reputation and he was willing to go to any lengths to maintain it. He’s a bad person in a subtle and hilarious way.

Generally speaking, there are too many fun and entertaining moments to count in this book. I love the childish-ness of this book in comparison to the darker tone the series adopts from POA onwards. For me, COS still has the silliness and merriment that I really associate HP with. Entertainment value aside, the plot in COS is actually well executed.

As a short, concise and effective plot, Tom Riddle’s diary and the Chamber of Secrets works incredibly well. I liked the mystery and suspense of the culprit of the Muggle born attacks, and the big moments connected to it - finding out that Hagrid might be the perpetrator, Ginny being possessed by Voldemort, Hermione being petrified, Harry speaking Parceltongue. The stakes are high and this plot is strong enough to keep momentum going between the more light hearted moments.

Overall, COS is a quick, easy and fun read. It may not be the best written or complex book in the series, but I’m a huge advocate for it. Not only is it highly entertaining, but it also introduced a lot of great and important aspects to the series (Horcruxes, Tom Riddle being the heir of Slytherin, Harry being connected to Voldemort, polyjuice potion and Dobby), and built very well on what was established in PS.

2. The Half Blood Prince

The biggest surprise of this re-read was how much I bloomin’ loved Half Blood Prince. It has the perfect balance of plot, character development, mystery, humour and emotion. Out of the bigger books in the series, this was the one I finished the fastest (2 days), because it was quite literally un-put-downable (yes, that’s a word).

First, let’s talk about the plot, because wow, it’s a good ‘un. In my opinion, it’s the strongest and best written plot from any of the books. There’s Voldemort’s backstory, the development of Harry and Dumbledore’s relationship, Snape’s backstory, the mystery of the Half Blood Prince, Harry’s rivalry/suspicion of Malfoy, hunting Horcruxes and Dumbledore’s death. This book feels like an incredible pay-off for things that have been built up in the previous 5 books. We learn so much about certain characters - Dumbledore, Snape, Malfoy, Voldemort, Ginny - and regardless of whether I liked those characters or not, I was invested. The clues that Snape is the Half Blood Prince are cleverly interwoven within the narrative and the mystery keeps you guessing, even when you know who it is.

The last part of this book from Chapter 26 onwards was just explosive. Although I knew what was coming, I was surprised at the level of emotion I felt when Dumbledore and Harry were in the cave and when Dumbledore died. My heart was racing and I had tears in my eyes.

This book just doesn’t let up for a second. If we aren’t learning more about Voldemort, we’re following Draco to see what he’s up to or unravelling mysteries around the Half Blood Prince or trying to get information from Slughorn about horcruxes. Even the down time is enjoyable to read in this book (Chapter 9 was one of my favourite chapters to read) and the friendships and banter are stellar.

In terms of character development, this is also one of the strongest books. Dumbledore is finally developed beyond the omnipotent Gandalf-esque archetype and we learn bout his past and his flaws.

"I have already proven to you, I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being - forgive me - rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger."

The focus on Dumbledore also sets it up for his death, and you know what? It works. If we’d lost Dumbledore prior to HBP, I would’ve been shocked and upset, but losing him at this point hurts that much more because we learn so much more about him, see how important he is to Harry and how vital his guidance is in defeating Voldemort. Dumbledore’s death feels like all hope is lost, and so soon after losing Sirius it feels even harsher.

Insight into Snape’s back-story finally explains some of his motivations and actions (though it does not condone them).

Although Voldemort’s backstory doesn’t necessarily add to our understanding of him, it’s interesting to see how he came into the world, and learn about his family background. What this demonstrated most to me is that a lot of the time there is no reason for evil. Voldemort didn’t really have any motivations for what he did. Sure, he didn’t have the perfect, happy childhood but there isn’t really enough substance there to try to explain how or why he became the monster that he did.

More could’ve been done with Malfoy, but I enjoyed him having a bigger presence in this book and how the idea that family shapes who we are isn’t always true. Draco does what is expected of him from his family, but ultimately, he has his own conscience and inner turmoil that forces him to question things.

As for Harry...he goes to a dark place in this book. OOTP has always been cpnsidered as the “angsty Harry”, but HBP takes Harry to new places. Harry feels more ruthless, reckless and determined in this book than any other. There’s an underlying sense of apathy that lingers from Sirius’ death. He obsesses about his mission to extract the memory from Slughorn and his lessons with Dumbledore, and fixates on his hatred for Draco and Snape. The fact that Harry uses Sectumsempra on Draco is honestly the most alarming thing that Harry does because it shows how dark a place Harry has gone to. He knows the spell is going to inflict serious harm and yet he uses it anyway.

Generally, Harry abuses the potions book and manipulates, lies and takes advantage of almost everyone around him. I really see his dependency on that book and his choice to exploit it for his own benefit as adverse effects of the grief and trauma he endured. For once, he has the upper hand and I’d even argue that despite the Half Blood Prince being anonymous stranger to him, he relies on him as a mentor or parental figure. Yet despite it being a dark book for Harry, he also seems to get some genuine peace with Ginny. Although I’m not a Hinny shipper, it was so nice to see Harry experience some normality and contentment. No matter what he goes through, he remains kind hearted. I actually feel like this book more than any other emphasises that point - Harry could just as easily have gone down the same path as Vodlemort, but he made a choice not to.

“In spite of all the temptation you have endured, all the suffering, you remain pure of heart, just as pure as you were at the age of eleven, when you stared into a mirror that reflected your hears desire and it showed you the only way to thwart Lord Voldement, and not immortality or riches. Harry, have you any idea how few wizards could have seen what you saw in the mirror?"

Plot and character development aside, the comedy in this book is gold and I appreciate the movie (and Daniel Radcliffe) for maximising on that to create some of the best and funniest scenes in the movie franchise. Chapter 18 in particular was hilarious.

Now I have to speak about one of my favourite moments from this book:

Since GoF, Fleur was grossly mistreated and discriminated against by the Weasley’s (Molly and Ginny in particular). The way they treated her was sexist and xenophobic pure and simple. They had no reason to dislike her and all of their reasons seemed to be built on some flimsy notion that she was full of herself (why, just because she was beautiful? and even if she was, what’s wrong with confidence?!) and that she was annoying and loud because she was French. Seeing Fleur finally stand up to their bigotry was fantastic. It’s a moment I’d been waiting for for so long and I’m so glad we got it, because frankly, Molly and Ginny’s beahviour towards Fleur needed to be addressed because it was disgusting.

Overall, HBP demonstrates the strengths of HP as a series. In comparison to the other books, I don’t really have anything to crituqe I enjoyed all of it from beginning to end, which is why it almost took the top spot in this ranking.

1. The Prisoner of Azkaban

It was really close between first and second place, but Prisoner of Azkaban just managed it. This is where the HP series truly takes off and starts to shine. In comparison to what we got in PS and COS it’s richer - the plot is complex, the world building is more developed, the characters are great and it’s generally an entertaining read but with added complexity in comparison to its predecessors.

I like that POA allows us to spend so much time in Hogwarts hanging out, but that the plot comes to the forefront more. We’re all so familiar with HP at this point that it’s easy to forget the impact the plot-twists must’ve punched the first time we read them. But for me, it’d been so long since I’d read the series, that it really was like reading them for the first time and POA was one of the ones that surprised me at various points.

I’d forgot details like:

The Shrieking Shack got its name and reputation because Lupin locked himself up there during transformations; The Whomping Willow was planted to hide the secret passage to the Shrieking Shack and prevent Lupin from escaping and hurting people in his werewolf form

Crookshanks was Sirius’ ally

Sirius escaped Azkaban in his dog form

Unsurprisingly, Remus and Sirius were the highlight of this book for me. I know it’s basic but I really love them and the two of them having such a focus in this book really makes it.

Remus truly shines in this book. He’s a lovable character – a great teacher, a supportive mentor and a loyal friend. His tragic backstory only adds to his character. Snape tries to villainise Remus for being a werewolf, but the reality is that he’s a victim. He was an innocent child that was bitten by a vicious, cruel monster and has to live with the consequences of that for the rest of his life. He carries so much self-loathing, fear and insecurity because of what he is and he doesn’t deserve it. Dumbledore is the only one that separates the man from the wolf and takes Remus on his merits. He knows that Remus is a genuinely good person and a talented teacher, and he’s willing to make the necessary adjustments to enable Remus equal opportunity. Not only does it benefit Remus for Dumbledore to do this, but the students too, because let’s face it, Remus is a bloody damn good teacher.

Remus is arguably the most decent and responsible adult character in the entire HP universe. He respects Harry’s agency but also acknowledges that he’s still a child that needs protection and guidance. Instead of lying to Harry or throwing him into dangerous situations, he does perhaps the most helpful thing any adult ever does for Harry – he teaches him how to defend himself. I love that Lupin and Harry’s relationship in this book foreshadows the formation of the DA in OOTP; Lupin is the only one that teaches Harry practical DATDA skills and in the absence of Lupin as a teacher, Harry then takes on that role as a mentor and provides his friends with the skills to defend themselves.

Now we come to Sirius. Introducing Sirius as the enemy – a dangerously, mad criminal who is conspiring with Voldemort and wants Harry dead – and then revealing him to be the complete opposite was genius. Part of me wished I could completely forget so that I could experience the utter shock of finding that out for the first time. The fact that Harry saw his parents in the Mirror of Erised in PS and then finds Sirius and Lupin in this book touches my heart. Sirius is a direct link to Harry’s parents unlike anything he’s ever had. Although on the surface, their bond develops too quickly, considering that Harry is 13 years old and all he wants more than anything is to have parents and/or a connection to his parents, his quick attachment to Sirius makes sense. The thought of living with Sirius makes Harry so happy that he used it to power his patronus!!! Likewise, Sirius clings to Harry knowing that he’s the son of his best friends. He spent the entirety of his time in Azkaban knowing Harry was still out there somewhere without James and Lily and in danger from Voldemort. Immediately, Sirius provides Harry with the type of comfort about his parents that he’s never received before.

“You think the dead we have loved ever truly leave us? You think that we don't recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble? Your father is alive in you, Harry, and shows himself most plainly when you have need of him. How else could you produce that particular Patronus? Prongs rode again last night.”

One of the highlights of this book is the scene where Snape catches Harry with the Marauders Map. That quote is just legendary.

"Mr Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business. Mr Prongs agrees with Mr Moony, and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git. Mr Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a Professor. Mr Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball."

Admittedly, the time travel in this book is problematic as hell. I’m grateful that Harry and Hermione were able to save Buckbeak and Sirius due to time travel, but if it was up to me, I’d remove time travel from the universe completely. It doesn’t fit, it’s too complicated and creates too many issues. McGonnagal condones the use of time travel for Hermione to attend extra lessons and yet won’t use it to tackle real, important problems, like I don’t know, war, death, disease, disasters etc. Not to mention the entire Voldemort problem and Harry becoming the Chosen One could’ve been resolved by going back to the night of James and Lily’s deaths.

One of my favourite elements of this book was seeing Ron and Hermione’s friendship with Hagrid. A lot of emphasis is placed on Harry’s friendship with Hagrid. but this book shows how devoted Ron and Hermione are to Hagrid. They both spend a lot of their time comforting him and helping him to prepare for Buckbeak’s trial.

This book has a great balance – it’s still on the shorter side but it doesn’t suffer for it. and here’s plenty of plot and character development. Ironically, whilst HBP is my favourite because of the emphasis on the main plot, POA is my favourite because it takes a break from Voldemort. It’s refreshing to take a step away from Voldemort and put the focus onto a new villain in Sirius, and then for the twist to be revealed that he’s not actually a villain but Harry’s godfather. The time-turner is the biggest draw-back in this book, but I can overlook that because there’s so much more to love in this book. It’s definitely the most re-readable book in terms of the length and plot. This book is a happy medium which incorporates the strengths from all of the other books in a smaller package than HBP - it’s fun but expands on the universe, introduces brilliant new characters and has a depth and complexity that the first two lack whilst not having the filler that books 4-7 have.

Conclusion

It’s hard to read these books without it being mingled with childhood nostalgia, so that undoubtedly informed my ranking. Despite being a children's series, the books still hold up reading them as an adult. I enjoyed rediscovering the smaller details I’d forgotten over the years and feel much closer to the universe as a result. The characters and their dynamics are by far my favourite thing about HP. I also enjoy the whimsical magic and how this is offset against the darker tone later in the series. However, in light of JKR’s hateful rhetoric, my attention was drawn to the problematic elements of the books such as the portrayal of slavery in addition to:

Lack of major/well-written characters of color

Anti-semitic caricature of goblin bankers

Cho Chang’s name (which many consider offensive), stereotypical placement in Ravenclaw (the smart house) while being the only East-Asian character in the books, and she functions almost exclusively as a love interest

Ableism all-around

Nagini, an evil snake who gets chopped in half, is actually an Asian woman according to Fantastic Beasts, making her the second of two named East Asian characters in the franchise

“Magic in North America,” a history of magic in North America published on Pottermore that grossly misappropriates and misconstrues Native American cultures

Anthony Goldstein, retconned token Jewish character, also stereotypically named

General stereotypical naming of non-Anglo-Saxon characters

Remus Lupin’s werewolf status as an AIDS metaphor while depicting his condition as making him monstrous, and the man who bit him goes around biting people for kicks

Declaring that Dumbledore is gay with exactly 0 in-canon references, and no other LGBTQ+ representation (article credit: Separating Art from Artist - Thoughts on J.K. Rowling written by Melina List on Medium)

This is the last time I will read these books, partly because I’ve outgrown them, but mostly because I can’t, without a heavy conscience ignore the relationship between JKR’s hateful views and her works. If you want to learn more about this, I’d recommend checking out a post from my_weird_bookish_heart on Instagram which explains why we couldn’t and shouldn’t ignore the problems in these books by adopting a “art is separate from the artist” mentality (if you would like the link to this please message me and I’l be happy to share it. We can all still love and enjoy HP, but we all have a moral duty to acknowledge and take responsibility for this and not feign ignorance. Views like JKR’s directly harm individuals and groups, not just in the trans community but also the Jewish and LGBTQIA+ communities and people of colour. I can’t and won’t accept that in silence. No matter how special HP was to me as a child, the lives of real humans are unquestionably more important.

Thank you for reading.

#hp #harry potter #hp books #harry potter books #hp review #hp book review #hp meta #mine #my meta #reposting from my sideblog cos i spent legit HOURS writing this and adding gifs and don't wanna lose it when i delete the blog

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